Class Examinations Not Board-Related

[FarmerToDoctor]

Can anyone speak to the reason or value for having system/course examinations that are not geared towards the board exams? This is not a subjective position on my program’s exams as our professors will state that they do not teach towards the board exams.

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[getfat]

No idea thats part of the med school game. Teaches you how to be efficient and how to get the most out of your time studying certain things.

 

[doctor_crane]

Some places want to teach you what they think you need to know as a physician. It may or may not agree with board exams. I had a professor once explain that board exams are only to access minimal competency, they instead try to teach beyond that.
Either way, your feelings are not uncommon. Just ensure you pass your classes and if you are M2, get some board studying in when you can.

 

[Goro]

Can anyone speak to the reason or value for having system/course examinations that are not geared towards the board exams? This is not a subjective position on my program’s exams as our professors will state that they do not teach towards the board exams.

Alas, there are Faculty who refuse to learn about what's actually on Board (and the NBOME actually helps faculty with Board relevance). Either that, or new Faculty at a new school just don't what's Board relevant.

Even worse, there are Faculty that insist on teaching minutiae, or about thier own research.

It's up to you students to talk to your Curriculum Deans about this, especially at a new school.

 

[RapidEyeMovementLearning]

You will learn the board relevant material with qbanks etc.. grind hard in class and do well because PDs have been using class rank as a filter this season

 

[Ho0v-man]

So some professors legitimately don’t care what’s on boards. They just know that someone who doesn’t work there anymore made a PowerPoint 10 years ago and they arent going to waste their time changing it

I had a couple like that at my school.

I remember being very frustrated that my school seemed to teach clinical stuff so much, even before we learned the basic sciences behind it(which was asinine but it all eventually came together). I would keep up with anki cards from a system block that were never taught and was very vocal about how much my school sucked.

Then they taught all that extra stuff I’d been teaching myself in its own dedicated block lol.

Then I got to rotations and realized why my school crammed so much clinically relevant stuff down our throats that was nowhere in First Aid. It was all over step 2.

We ended up looking pretty good on rotations because of our good preclinical education. It was to the point that our preceptors preferred us to the local MD students and were very vocal about it.

I got an education that was pretty relevant to being a doctor. But it wasn’t necessarily hi-yield for board exams.

TLDR; my school cared much more about making a clinically competent doctor than a boards destroyer. They don’t fully overlap. Crushing boards is on the student.

 

[Goro]

So some professors legitimately don’t care what’s on boards. They just know that someone who doesn’t work there anymore made a PowerPoint 10 years ago and they arent going to waste their time changing it

I had a couple like that at my school.

I remember being very frustrated that my school seemed to teach clinical stuff so much, even before we learned the basic sciences behind it(which was asinine but it all eventually came together). I would keep up with anki cards from a system block that were never taught and was very vocal about how much my school sucked.

Then they taught all that extra stuff I’d been teaching myself in its own dedicated block lol.

Then I got to rotations and realized why my school crammed so much clinically relevant stuff down our throats that was nowhere in First Aid. It was all over step 2.

We ended up looking pretty good on rotations because of our good preclinical education. It was to the point that our preceptors preferred us to the local MD students and were very vocal about it.

I got an education that was pretty relevant to being a doctor. But it wasn’t necessarily hi-yield for board exams.

TLDR; my school cared much more about making a clinically competent doctor than a boards destroyer. They don’t fully overlap. Crushing boards is on the student.

And at this point in time, as Step I/Level I are P/F, there's no need to kill yourselves in Board prep. All you need to do is pass.

Ho0v-man, as someone who takes med ed very seriously, those execrable profs of your were an embarrassment to teaching!

 

[Ho0v-man]

And at this point in time, as Step I/Level I are P/F, there's no need to kill yourselves in Board prep. All you need to do is pass.

Ho0v-man, as someone who takes med ed very seriously, those execrable profs of your were an embarrassment to teaching!

But there’s always too much to learn. Todays standard of just passing is definitely lower than the expectation to murder step 1 that we had. But it’s still a much higher bar than current med students have ever been held to. So even though it’s easier than what I experienced, it’s still overwhelming and frustrating when you have to do more for what you perceive as not useful.

 

[Angler]

And at this point in time, as Step I/Level I are P/F, there's no need to kill yourselves in Board prep. All you need to do is pass.

However, you cannot just blow it off. Between 2021 (graded Step 1) and 2022 (P/F Step 1), the fail rate for Step 1 increased a lot. For DO students, fail rate went from 6% to 11%, and MD students, from 5% to 9%. It seems like there was some complacency with board prep.