-The key to doing well on rotations is to study early with a decent resource (ask upperclassmen), and get through (aka do and thoroughly review) the UWorld questions and 4 NBME practice exams.-The review videos by Emma Ramahi/Onlinemeded are also clutch. It is officially licensed by the same body that administers the United States Medical Licensing Exam (USMLE), the National Board of Medical Examiners (NBME). Weird personal trend but NBME breaks questions down by setting and I noticed I’m significantly better with ambulatory questions than inpatient questions (throughout all shelf exams including surgery/IM/etc.) The NBME® Surgery Shelf is a case-based exam that tests students on their ability to diagnose and manage surgical patients, including determining when surgical management is required. Very, very long story short, do these exams if you want to score high on the shelf exams. Medicine aren't the only ones who can read ABGs. Use them!-The surgery shelf draws on material from many different fields. For clerkship students and others who want Q&A study material for specific subject PEDIATRICS SHELF 7/20/18: 74 = 34%ile; Shelf #5 - Surgery-Hit a second wind starting with surgery. Study pre-op/post-op care and medical issues in surgical patients (the first three chapters in any surgery text). Study materials: If you have the chance to choose, I recommend doing Medicine first. Qbanks, test prep books, materials to help you prepare for all sorts of exams: USMLE, Boards, USDME, Shelf exams, and more. Thus a full review of your notebook can easily be done the final days before your shelf exam. By the end of your rotation, the notebook should be all you need to ace the shelf exam. This made me realize, I have absolutely no idea how to study for shelf exams. The shelf does not ask you about anatomy or procedures; it asks you about medical management of surgical patients. It can cover a broad range of topics, including relevant cases from Ob-Gyn, Medicine, and Pediatrics. Study with AMBOSS. Final Week Before Your Shelf Exam: By now you’ve finished your designated text. The one catch: They're $20 bucks a pop. But do it. I thought this shelf exam was one of the harder ones of the year and I didn’t have Medicine before Surgery so I knew I had a lot to study. By test day, you’ve likely reviewed each page at least 2-3 times. Study strategy included doing all of the UWorld questions, reviewing topics, studying in-house materials for our in-house written/oral tests, and just generally paying attention. I don't think saying that the surgery shelf is a medicine shelf is a good representation of the content that I had. I used deVirgilio's Surgery: A Case Based Clinical Review ( Amazon product) It was the only thing I used for my surgery rotation and I honored the rotation and scored > 90% on the shelf.It has about 300 questions with in-depth explanations in the back of the book too. Looking for a new Surgery Shelf resource? I ended up getting the following books: NMS Surgery Casebook About to start rotations (July 6) and I saw that some of my classmates already started studying for shelf exams (surgery, cause they said they heard its hard). I do feel like studying surgery concepts and understanding the next step in management (which might not be surgery it might be giving a PPI for 2 weeks) is what is necessary to do well on this exam. which is kind of disheartening because inpatient questions are usually the harder ones with the meat. Surgery. Because this was my first clerkship, I struggled a bit with my study habits and identifying the best way to do well in the ORs, on the floors and on my shelf exam. Anyone who tells a medical student to study medicine for the Surgery Shelf exam is both lying and doing them a major disservice. Shelf exams are where med students in their MS3 taking clinical rotations get examined and assessed of their mastery and practical application of medical knowledge within the actual clinical setting.. Ob/Gyn was my hardest one and I got a 97% on it because I did both forms of the practice exams twice, and the second time the night before my actual test.