Successful board passage requires several things: a strategic plan, a schedule, discipline, motivation to stay on task, a comfortable and convenient place to study, and successful learning and test-taking skills. It also requires organizational skills that can increase your productivity.
One place to begin is to organize your study area to set the tone for a successful learning experience. You can start by organizing your office space, computer, smartphone, and resources. Office essentials include a desk, a chair (preferably ergonomic), and a lamp (preferably with cool LEDs). Here are seven tips that can position you for a successful learning adventure.
Clear your desk (and office) of clutter. A desk that is too large can often invite clutter. Organize your desk to facilitate work by keeping only the essential office tools. Optimize under-desk storage whenever you can. Most of us also find it easier to focus when our offices are also clutter-free—do what you can to eliminate (or move to another location) items you’re not using.
Add a timer to your computer menu bar. There are many Apps for timers available, such as the Pomodoro or Vitamin-R. Timers are valuable because they can keep you focused and on track. You can learn about the benefits of using the Pomodoro Technique here.
Add a folder on your computer desktop for important board-related material. The folder might include email correspondence from your professional society sponsoring the board exam and guidelines on what to take/not take with you to the testing center.
Set a time each day for study and schedule it on your digital devices adding an alert feature. It has been said that this is THE most important thing you can do to prepare for boards.
Gather all your board review material (e.g., essential textbooks, review books, medical dictionary, board review lectures/videos) and place it in a bookcase or cabinet in your office.
Create a 3-ring notebook with tabs for board-related information (e.g., the content grid for the board exam, separate tabs for each topic area that contain specific learning issues, notes and other learning aids, and critical resources).
Subscribe to at least two online question banks. If your medical specialty does not have an online question bank, explore other options, like Board Vitals, TRUELEARN, or The PASSMACHINE. Ask your colleagues for advice on what question bank (and other resources) they found most helpful.
Organizing yourself (and your office) is an essential first step in preparing for a successful board review. Now you’re ready to tackle the next important step—starting your board review. Visit my blog for additional tips on preparing for and passing your medical boards.
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Linda L. Carr, Ph.D., Founder/Principal at Coaching for Medical Specialty Boards, is a medical educator and learning specialist who coaches physicians preparing for specialty boards through virtual, one-on-one coaching. Visit www.DrLindaCarr.org to learn more about her program and download her FREE Study Guide.
It’s been said that the average American worker spends seven hours a day on the computer, either in the office or working from home. It’s not unusual for physicians to spend even more time at the computer during their intensive board review.
Several factors may contribute to digital eye strain, such as screen glare, poor lighting, poor posture while using a computer, viewing a computer at the wrong distance and angle, not taking breaks while working, uncorrected vision problems, or combinations of these.
Using a computer for significant periods can cause many users to experience Computer Vision Syndrome (CVS). Symptoms of CVS include visual changes (blurred/double vision), dry or red eyes, eye pain, neck aches, and headaches.
The good news is that there are simple steps you can take to alleviate digital eyestrain:
o FOLLOW THE 20-20-20 RULE … LOOK AWAY: Taking short breaks periodically can reduce eye fatigue. Follow the 20-20-20 Rule: Every 20 minutes, take a 20-second break to view something 20 feet away. This can relax your eye muscles.
o DON’T FORGET TO BLINK: Studies show that close and concentrated work causes you to blink less frequently. Blinking is your eye’s natural way of resting and staying lubricated. Make a conscious effort to blink every 10 to 15 seconds to minimize the likelihood of developing dry eyes and keep your vision sharper.
o PROPERLY POSITION YOUR SCREEN: Your computer screen should be 20 to 26 inches from your eyes. It should be placed just below your line of sight, 10 to 15 degrees below your eyes. This helps to prevent awkward head/neck positioning.
o SCHEDULE SOME BREAKS: Remember, the body is meant to move—so stretch multiple times throughout the day. Be kind to yourself by scheduling breaks to help your mind and body reset. Listen to music, meditate, stretch, or take a short walk to refresh. Set a clock or use a Pomodoro timer to remind yourself to take a break. It would be best if you gave your eyes a break from screens for 15 minutes after every two hours of work.
o CONSIDER ERGONOMICS: Sitting up straight and pulling the belly button toward the lower spine so that the lower abdominal muscles engage is ideal. Practicing good posture takes effort and discipline, but it’s worth it. A straight and upright back nicely aligns the vertebrae in your back. Bad posture (slouching) can harm your physical body (reduced blood flow) and your mental health (depression and anxiety).
o ASSESS AMOUNT OF LIGHT: Too little or too much light coming through windows or bright room light is not ideal. Control natural light by using blinds or shades. Turn off overhead fluorescent lights to create a more desirable ambiance. Position your computer so windows are to the side of it.
Pay attention to your eyes by following these simple steps to care for your eyes during your intensive board preparation.
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Linda L. Carr, Ph.D., Founder/Principal at Coaching for Medical Specialty Boards, is a medical educator and learning specialist who coaches physicians preparing for specialty boards through virtual, one-on-one coaching. Visit www.DrLindaCarr.org to learn more about her program and download her FREE Study Guide.
Preparing for medical specialty boards can be overwhelming to say the least. It becomes a juggling act to add board review to an already jam-packed schedule. Staying energized and calm in the face of an impending critical deadline–such as a medical board exam–isn’t easy, however, there are steps you can take to minimize the feeling of being overwhelmed.
The 10 steps below can bring order to the chaos and help you better manage the board prep experience:
1. Begin with the date you want to take the exam and work backward to create a timeline for your board preparation.
2. Develop a study plan with a schedule. Use the content blueprint of the board exam to identify and prioritize topics to study. Prepare a monthly calendar of topics to study, and aim to put in at least 2 hrs per night on 3 nights of the week.
3. Assess your readiness for passing the exam by taking a recent In-Service Training Exam that your program might make available or that is online (check board review sites). Identify your areas of weakness and strength, and focus your attention on your areas of need.
4. Decide how much time you need to devote to preparation–three to four months is quite normal, but it depends on your readiness, length of time since completing residency, and the amount of time you have available to prepare.
5. Schedule a regular time to study. This is the MOST IMPORTANT thing to do to prepare for boards! Add these time blocks (e.g., 1 to 2 hours) to your daily schedule, and set an alert as a reminder. The more specific your calendar entries, the more likely you will actually follow through. Studying is more effective spread out over a longer period of time. Be realistic—don’t schedule more than you can actually accomplish. Be flexible—build in flexibility (i.e., one day of no study per week and extra “float” days for emergencies).
6. Use a structured review process with repetitive cycles. Each day review key ‘weak’ topics from the day before. On weekends, spend 3 to 4 hours connecting and consolidating learning points from the past week. Take a comprehensive practice test (200-300 questions) every month to assess your progress.
7. Overcome procrastination by organizing your study area so you can stay focused. Put all of your resources in one place to create a distraction-free environment. Work on bite-sized tasks. Set a timer. Use a reward system. Don’t multitask (“switch task”) because it diverts your attention, and can result in processing inaccuracies and retrieval errors.
8. Track your progress daily by recording thetopics you’ve reviewed, resources used, and the percentage of correct multiple choice questions. Organize a 3-ring binder with tabs for each primary category)to record your results and monitor your progress.
9. Stay energized by maintaining a balanced regimen. Schedule pleasurable activities as well as obligations (color code your schedule) to maintain balance and variety in your work-study program.
10. Keep fit and healthy. Break up your study by spending a few minutes every hour stretching or exercising to increase circulation and get revitalized. Eat healthy food, not calorie-laden snacks.
DON’T WAIT any longer. Start NOW. Follow steps 1 – 5 to launch your board review. Then, integrate steps 6 – 10 into your daily study regimen–make this a habit. These simple strategies can reduce overwhelm and keep you on track during this critical time.
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Linda L. Carr, Ph.D., Founder/Principal at Coaching for Medical Specialty Boards, is a medical educator and learning specialist who coaches physicians preparing for specialty boards through virtual, one-on-one coaching. Visit www.DrLindaCarr.org to learn more about her program and download her FREE Study Guide.
Successful board passage requires a multi-step approach that begins with a realistic timeline. As you consider your needs and resources, review these key steps to make your board preparation experience effective, efficient, and ultimately successful.
1. Start early and establish a study schedule.
The earlier you start preparing for your board exams, the more time you will have to cover the material, and the less stressed you will feel. Start with the date of your board examination and work backward to today. Establish a timeline by calculating the number of months, weekdays, and weekend days. Develop a consistent study routine to study for 60-90 minutes (or more depending on your situation) at the same time each day. Set an alert on your phone as a reminder. Remember that you need one day a week with no study to give your mind a break and catch up on errands and home responsibilities. As a reminder, hang your study schedule in a prominent location and refer to it daily.
2. Choose resources wisely.
Many different resources (review books, online or in-person review courses, online lectures, online test banks, videos, images, and flashcards) are available to help you prepare for your board exam. Choose resources that align with your learning style. Review the exam blueprint of your specialty, focusing on high-yield facts. Consider using two online question banks to add variety and provide a more accurate status of your progress. Select a current, comprehensive review book for your medical specialty (e.g., Johns Hopkins, Mayo Clinic, or Cleveland Clinic publications). Refer to a textbook only as necessary; otherwise, use a board review book as a primary go-to reference. It’s easy to become overwhelmed when using a textbook–so watch your time.
3. Organize your study area and clear your desk.
It is important to stay organized during your board prep. Remove clutter because our brains like order. Disorganization drains our cognitive resources and reduces our ability to focus. Organize your board prep resources (e.g., texts, review books, notes, digital files, and board review course material) to be readily accessible in one location.
4. Take breaks.
It is important to take breaks when you study. If you are a physician preparing for board exams, I encourage you to use the Pomodoro Technique. It is a time management system that helps improve focus, concentration, and productivity. Studies estimate that the attention span or the ability to concentrate on a single task is approximately 20 minutes. Install the timer on your digital devices, then set the timer for 20-25 minutes and give the work your total concentration. Don’t answer the phone, check email, or surf the internet. When the timer “dings,” take a regulated five-minute break. Get up and move around. Then start on another Pomodoro. After 4 pomodoros, take a long 15-minute break.
5. Take a 300-item practice test.
Whether you feel prepared or not, take a comprehensive practice test at the start of your board review to assess your current knowledge base. Consider taking 150 questions from two different question banks. Include as many of the topics from the examination blueprint as you can. Each month take a practice test to monitor your progress, assess your strengths and weaknesses, and build confidence.
Successful board passage requires planning, preparation, organization, and action. Starting is the hardest part of the board review process. Feeling overwhelmed is natural because the content is vast, and your time to study is limited. Use these five smart tips to successfully launch your board prep and propel you to a successful finish.
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Linda L. Carr, Ph.D., Founder/Principal at Coaching for Medical Specialty Boards, is a medical educator and learning specialist who coaches physicians preparing for specialty boards through virtual, one-on-one coaching. Visit www.DrLindaCarr.org to learn more about her program and download her FREE Study Guide.
It’s easy to become overwhelmed while preparing for boards! However, having a “Game Plan” that provides structure and direction to guide your review process can help you stay on track and reduce your test anxiety. Use these four basic steps to kickstart your review.
1. Get to Know the Exam. Visit the website of the professional organization giving the board examination to learn all you can about the exam (e.g., application process, deadlines, cost, documents needed, rules, types of questions, scoring, online tutorial, date/location of the exam, and test blueprint). Use the test blueprint (i.e., number or % of questions per topic) to focus your study. Spend the majority of your review time on the topics that have the highest percentage of questions (highest yield).
2. Assess & Re-Assess Your Abilities.First, assess your level of knowledge and skills by reviewing your past performance on your last one or two board examinations (e.g., USMLE, COMLEX, or In-Training Exam) to identify which areas you scored low. Remember that personality traits–habitual patterns of thought, emotion, and behavior–including learning “style” or preferences, strongly influence how you study, how you process information, and how you make decisions. Second, get a general idea of your readiness by taking a multiple choice exam of 250-300 questions organized randomly. Identify your knowledge gaps and compare these to the highest yield items on the test blueprint. Focus your preparation on taking a large pool of quality multiple choice questions (MCQs). Assess your progress daily. When you identify gaps in your knowledge, use review guides rather than textbooks, because the high-density content of textbooks can slow you down. If you need more information than the review book contains, then refer to the textbook.
3. Improve Your Knowledge & Skills. Test-wiseness (preparation skills) and test-taking skills (strategies used during the exam) are key to increasing your scores. Board exams are designed to cover an entire domain and require a deeper understanding of principles and concepts (higher-level thinking). You will need to go beyond reading, memorizing, and answering MCQs by recognizing memorized facts and concepts to be able to solve problems, evaluate a situation, make a judgment, or synthesize new ideas. Study techniques, such as elaboration (adding details to aid understanding) and forming associations (creating meaningful links between newly acquired information and existing knowledge) aid recall.Read MCQs correctly by reading the interrogatory (question to be answered–usually the last sentence) first, then reading the stem (case narrative). Finally, try to guess what the best answer is BEFORE you reveal the answer. Change the questions to make them different or more challenging. Change the interrogatory to make one of the other answer options a better answer. Edit the options to make a wrong answer the right answer. In this way, you challenge yourself to take a single question and create many other possible questions. Finally, identify your knowledge gaps and use study guides (not textbooks) to review material.
4. Use a Structured Review Process.Develop a study plan that schedules a regular time to study–this is the most important thing to do to prepare for boards! Study is more effective spread over a longer period of time. Don’t schedule more than you can actually accomplish. Be specific in your calendar entries–you will be more likely to actually follow through. Be flexible by scheduling one day per week that is a non-review day to do errands and pleasurable activities.
Review your schedule at least once each week and revise as needed. Break the boards into the subspecialties. Then, break those into smaller subcategories. Divide your study week so that you put in at least two hours per night, three nights per week. Schedule the topics you will study and review during these “appointment slots”, and add 20% to the time you think it will take to cover a subcategory. Include learning at home, reading during slow times at the office or while on call.
Schedule a time each week to read generalist medical journals relevant to your practice. Include clinical practice cases to enhance your study. Schedule “Review Cycles”–each day review the weak topics from the previous day, on weekends spend 3-4 hours to consolidate your learning from the previous week, and for the last 3-5 days prior to the exam, devote time to overall review, do NOT cover new information!
These four basic steps will help you develop your “Game Plan” and bring order to what can often become a chaotic whirlwind of frenetic activity while preparing for boards. While this process takes time and effort, it’s well worth it. In short, begin with the end in mind, plan for the worst, develop a realistic study plan, and prioritize your study time.
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Linda L. Carr, Ph.D., Founder/Principal at Coaching for Medical Specialty Boards, is a medical educator and learning specialist who coaches physicians preparing for specialty boards through virtual, one-on-one coaching. Visit www.DrLindaCarr.org to learn more about her program and download her FREE Study Guide.
