Resources
ACOG Uwise question bank
Your best tool to succeed on the shelf. Short 10 question quizzes that cover every topic in OB/GYN. The questions are a learning tool, take notes on the answers. They are not in the style of the shelf but are great to do multiple times to really nail the concepts.
Christensen Lectures
Listen to them in the car, they are available via blackboard and a shared dropbox if you get it from a friend. They cover all the topics by a Wayne OB/GYN Oncology physician. The screening guidelines are out of date but everything else is wonderful, especially the section on hormone insensitivity and abnormal development.
Up To Date
-For your patients-the more you read on your patients the better your overall preparation.
USMLE World OBGYN
-As with any question bank, making the question review process an active rather passive experience will yield higher benefits, such as writing out in a word document the explanations provided and how your thought process led you to the correct or incorrect answer. These are not all encompassing like they are for IM. U wise is better for content inclusivity but these are closer to the style of the shelf.
USMLE Secrets Step 2
A useful book to cover very high yield topics when tired. It is in no way comprehensive on any topic but it will point you in the right direction for the topics worth looking into further. However, MKSAP goes into greater depth but Secrets covers all the subspecialties on the exam for a quick read in between usmle world questions.
NBME exam: always helpful, some questions seemed to appear on the shelf however no explanations.
Case files OB/GYN– gives clear cut pictures on basic presentations, no nuance or depth that shelf questions will often probe at. Case files has mostly normal presentations of the biggest disease, the breadth of coverage is insufficient, also clunky if you wish to reference a specific illness. Not recommended for OBGYN given the availability of more comprehensive and in depth resources.
Blueprints OB/GYN: the first few chapters are great for an in depth reference before beginning on the wards. A nice reference book, probably the best in the series, not necessarily read cover to cover when the ACOG uwise questions are a more comprehensive learning tool.
Pretest OB/GYN- The questions are super short one liners a lot of the time and broken down by subject matter, a nice book on this rotation to keep things fresh, you can easily do 150-200 questions in an afternoon. If you ace all of uwise, do these over uworld IMO because they are faster to go over and you will cement ideas you have from doing the ACOG questions.
Pathoma: worth reading over for the breast and gyn organ chapters at least once since every shelf exam will build on basic pathology knowledge. If you used this during step 1 preparation, reading over it should be more of a review process.
Kaplan Notes OB/GYN-found online or in the shared dropbox, fairly comprehensive but not as accessible as other resources since you can’t word search the pdfs.
Goljan Rapid Review Pathology: very useful for quick reference of pathology. Just because it is year 3 does not make this useless! Many of your attendings will ask you basic physiology found in this book.
First Aid for Step 1
-often reviewing your basic pathophysiology will pay dividends on clinical medicine exams.
High Yield Topics
OB
1. What the goal of every visit during the trimesters, what tests are done and how useful they are, including sensitivity
2. When during pregnancy can disease processes be picked up
3. Chromosomal disorders, spinal disorders
4. Fetal heart monitor
5. Placenta previa vs placental abruption
6. Differential for bleeding in pregnancy, if it is normal, previa, abruption, this is TEN QUESTIONS AT LEAST ON THE SHELF and heavily on step 2.
7. Delivery complications, passenger, opening etcetera.
8. Impact of magnesium, basics of tocolytics.
9. Inducer agent pharmacology and side effects
10. Cervical cerclage indications and timing
11. Definition of abortion types, partial, complete, imminent..
12. Basic anatomy
13. Expected growth curves, when is the baby under, overweight
14. Weight gain for expecting mothers based on BMI
15. Impact of diabetes on mother and developing child
16. Teratogenic mediciations
17. Ectopic pregnancy is also at least one,
18. Hydatiform mole, will be given an hcg level to read, understand how grossly high it should be
19. Quad screening, sensitivity
20. Know complications of maternal medication conditions on the fetus and the newborn, for example a hypothyroid mother, hypoglycemic mother
GYN topics-why are they bleeding, at least 30 questions overall on the shelf
21. Menstrual cycle, very high yield
22. Timing of menopause
23. Natural history of a woman’s menses
24. Understanding endocrine, metabolic dissarrangements such as early menses due to pituitary or gonadal tumor
25. Need to know dysfunction uterine bleeding, based on the age of the patient and the different differential, eg. Normal at 11, more likely cancer at 70.
26. Abnormal uterine bleeding
27. Benign pathology of the gynecological tract
28. UTIs and pharmacological management
29. STIs
30. Fibroids and medical management
31. Menopause and indications for HRT, one question
32. Indications for bisphosphonates for vit d deficiency
33. Understanding a DEXA
34. Outpatient general woman management screening protocol
35. STD screening protocol
36. Osteoporosis timeline
37. Breast exam timeline
38. Also general adult management
39. Who needs a pap smear and when, its utility and combining
40. Mammogram protocol
41. Fitz-hugh Curtis is both a pimp question and one question on the exam
42. PID related to chlamidya
43. Management of uterine infections with antibiotics Know
44. Uterine typical and atypical hyperplasia
45. Oncology is minor but present
46. The disorders related
47. Gyn onc-age groups, symptoms
48. Diagnostics-ca-125, lh, fsh, testoterone
49. Urogyn-pessaries
50. Incontinence differential-surgical and medical treatment
51. Evaluating hormone levels will be 4-5 questions with arrows up/down to select correct grouping
52. General knowledge of the applicability of Alcohol, Smoking, and Diabetes (the big three of medical school) to the exam in question. Always good for 5-10 questions on the shelves.
ACOG Uwise question bank
Your best tool to succeed on the shelf. Short 10 question quizzes that cover every topic in OB/GYN. The questions are a learning tool, take notes on the answers. They are not in the style of the shelf but are great to do multiple times to really nail the concepts.
Christensen Lectures
Listen to them in the car, they are available via blackboard and a shared dropbox if you get it from a friend. They cover all the topics by a Wayne OB/GYN Oncology physician. The screening guidelines are out of date but everything else is wonderful, especially the section on hormone insensitivity and abnormal development.
Up To Date
-For your patients-the more you read on your patients the better your overall preparation.
USMLE World OBGYN
-As with any question bank, making the question review process an active rather passive experience will yield higher benefits, such as writing out in a word document the explanations provided and how your thought process led you to the correct or incorrect answer. These are not all encompassing like they are for IM. U wise is better for content inclusivity but these are closer to the style of the shelf.
USMLE Secrets Step 2
A useful book to cover very high yield topics when tired. It is in no way comprehensive on any topic but it will point you in the right direction for the topics worth looking into further. However, MKSAP goes into greater depth but Secrets covers all the subspecialties on the exam for a quick read in between usmle world questions.
NBME exam: always helpful, some questions seemed to appear on the shelf however no explanations.
Case files OB/GYN– gives clear cut pictures on basic presentations, no nuance or depth that shelf questions will often probe at. Case files has mostly normal presentations of the biggest disease, the breadth of coverage is insufficient, also clunky if you wish to reference a specific illness. Not recommended for OBGYN given the availability of more comprehensive and in depth resources.
Blueprints OB/GYN: the first few chapters are great for an in depth reference before beginning on the wards. A nice reference book, probably the best in the series, not necessarily read cover to cover when the ACOG uwise questions are a more comprehensive learning tool.
Pretest OB/GYN- The questions are super short one liners a lot of the time and broken down by subject matter, a nice book on this rotation to keep things fresh, you can easily do 150-200 questions in an afternoon. If you ace all of uwise, do these over uworld IMO because they are faster to go over and you will cement ideas you have from doing the ACOG questions.
Pathoma: worth reading over for the breast and gyn organ chapters at least once since every shelf exam will build on basic pathology knowledge. If you used this during step 1 preparation, reading over it should be more of a review process.
Kaplan Notes OB/GYN-found online or in the shared dropbox, fairly comprehensive but not as accessible as other resources since you can’t word search the pdfs.
Goljan Rapid Review Pathology: very useful for quick reference of pathology. Just because it is year 3 does not make this useless! Many of your attendings will ask you basic physiology found in this book.
First Aid for Step 1
-often reviewing your basic pathophysiology will pay dividends on clinical medicine exams.
High Yield Topics
OB
1. What the goal of every visit during the trimesters, what tests are done and how useful they are, including sensitivity
2. When during pregnancy can disease processes be picked up
3. Chromosomal disorders, spinal disorders
4. Fetal heart monitor
5. Placenta previa vs placental abruption
6. Differential for bleeding in pregnancy, if it is normal, previa, abruption, this is TEN QUESTIONS AT LEAST ON THE SHELF and heavily on step 2.
7. Delivery complications, passenger, opening etcetera.
8. Impact of magnesium, basics of tocolytics.
9. Inducer agent pharmacology and side effects
10. Cervical cerclage indications and timing
11. Definition of abortion types, partial, complete, imminent..
12. Basic anatomy
13. Expected growth curves, when is the baby under, overweight
14. Weight gain for expecting mothers based on BMI
15. Impact of diabetes on mother and developing child
16. Teratogenic mediciations
17. Ectopic pregnancy is also at least one,
18. Hydatiform mole, will be given an hcg level to read, understand how grossly high it should be
19. Quad screening, sensitivity
20. Know complications of maternal medication conditions on the fetus and the newborn, for example a hypothyroid mother, hypoglycemic mother
GYN topics-why are they bleeding, at least 30 questions overall on the shelf
21. Menstrual cycle, very high yield
22. Timing of menopause
23. Natural history of a woman’s menses
24. Understanding endocrine, metabolic dissarrangements such as early menses due to pituitary or gonadal tumor
25. Need to know dysfunction uterine bleeding, based on the age of the patient and the different differential, eg. Normal at 11, more likely cancer at 70.
26. Abnormal uterine bleeding
27. Benign pathology of the gynecological tract
28. UTIs and pharmacological management
29. STIs
30. Fibroids and medical management
31. Menopause and indications for HRT, one question
32. Indications for bisphosphonates for vit d deficiency
33. Understanding a DEXA
34. Outpatient general woman management screening protocol
35. STD screening protocol
36. Osteoporosis timeline
37. Breast exam timeline
38. Also general adult management
39. Who needs a pap smear and when, its utility and combining
40. Mammogram protocol
41. Fitz-hugh Curtis is both a pimp question and one question on the exam
42. PID related to chlamidya
43. Management of uterine infections with antibiotics Know
44. Uterine typical and atypical hyperplasia
45. Oncology is minor but present
46. The disorders related
47. Gyn onc-age groups, symptoms
48. Diagnostics-ca-125, lh, fsh, testoterone
49. Urogyn-pessaries
50. Incontinence differential-surgical and medical treatment
51. Evaluating hormone levels will be 4-5 questions with arrows up/down to select correct grouping
52. General knowledge of the applicability of Alcohol, Smoking, and Diabetes (the big three of medical school) to the exam in question. Always good for 5-10 questions on the shelves.