Resources
Pestana Notes
notes as published by Kaplan, definitely read at least twice
-it includes sections on all the surgical subspecialties that are all given 2-3 questions on the Shelf.
Up To Date
-For your patients-the more you read on your patients the better your overall preparation.
USMLE World Internal Medicine Subsection GI
-The surgery exam is basically for an internal medicine resident to know what is a surgical patient and what they would need to ask surgery to do, there are no actual details of surgery or anatomy on the actual shelf.
Oral Exam Study Guide
-prepare the cases and this will serve double of prepping you for the oral cases and your exam!
MKSAP questions on GI.
-extremely high yield since this is a medicine exam effectively.
NMS Surgery Casebook
-while the NMS surgery book companion is great as a reference, this book is more useful as a combination prep for your oral cases preparation, hospital work, the shelf and step 2. It is still dense but with the time commitment is has a very high yield. One of the best big prep books out there.
Surgical Recall
This has tremendous utility as a surgical medical student but none for the actual exam. Always reference before entering the OR but this will not help for the SHELF which tests medical management, the exam is very similar to Internal Medicine. Very useful for surgical nomenclature and “pimping”
Abernathy’s Surgical Secrets
Very similar conceptually to surgery recall, available for free via shiffman year 3 resources online
NBME exam: very helpful, some questions seemed to appear on the shelf however no explanations. Typically people perform much better on this than the actual surgery shelf.
Case files Surgery– gives clear cut pictures on basic presentations, no nuance or depth that shelf questions will often probe at. Case files-most 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 surgery.
Blueprints Surgery: great for a firm basis of pathology and knowledge for reference, not a quick read.
Pretest Surgery-will provide questions on all the areas of surgery but not in SHELF format.
Pathoma: worth reading over for the GI sections at leaste 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 Surgery-found online or in the shared dropbox, this is the same thing as Pestana notes, the most high yield little book.
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.
Step Up to Medicine-emergency
-you need to know how to manage a patient emergently as a first year surgery resident handles medical management and ICU work.
Schwartz Surgery
If struggling with a topic, access major texts via accessmedicine via shiffman
Essentials of Surgery
Not useful for the shelf. The Wayne exam is drawn from this books clinical pearls, a document floats around that has these compiled. This book is also available via shiffman for free.
High Yield Topics
1. Indications for surgery is as far into surgery as any question gets, nothing will be asked about the technical aspect of individual surgeries. There may be questions on different interventional diagnoistics, contrast enema vs scope vs ct, etc.
2. Understand the gold standard diagnostic test and the contraindications and what we gain from it and what cannot be ruled out.
3. Understand electrolyes, what is normal, how to correct, big problems to watch out
4. Hyperkalemia
5. Hypernatremia
6. Acidosis
7. Alkalosis
8. Read an ABG
9. Biggest pimp topic, top cause of diseases
10. Top Causes of SBO, pancreatitis, for example
11. Preop/postop management Pestana does this well
12. Risks of surgery
13. Trauma management
14. Very little in terms of actual surgical procedures on the shelf
15. Compartment syndrome very high yield
16. Trauma algorithmàABC, primary survey vs secondary survey
17. Basic composition of acute abdomen
18. Diverticulitis
19. When to operate on a cholecystitis vs. non operative management
20. Understand post op complications
a. Dehiscence
b. Leaking
c. 5 Ws of fever
d. anastomotic leak
e. infection at the site of surgery
21. medication implications
22. mastectomy and lymphedema in the arm
23. 2-3 antibiotic questions, anaerobic coverage for acute abdomen
24. biliary tract understanding and pathologic differentiation
25. cholelithiasis, vs ascending cholangitis, vs choledocolithiasis, vs pancreatitis
26. charcots triad
27. raynauds pentad
28. becks triad
29. any combination of a mans name and a number eponyms are HUGE in surgery.
30. Sister mary joseph’s nodule.
31. DVTs
32. PE vs cardiac chest pain.
33. Virchows triad for thromboembolism-coagulopathy, stasis, vascular damage
34. Breast nodal distribution
35. Anatomy for the course and the steffes exam. Very minimal on the actual shelf exam.
36. Before an operation look up the landmarks, know any eponynmous anatomical structures.
37. Know the blood flow, lymphatic drainage, and nervous system relation for pimping.
38. Steffes exam: at least review the clinical pearls from OR and rounding in essentials of surgery. Document floating around.
39. Oral exam study guide is very helpful for the rotation, better than casefiles for the rotation.
Pestana Notes
notes as published by Kaplan, definitely read at least twice
-it includes sections on all the surgical subspecialties that are all given 2-3 questions on the Shelf.
Up To Date
-For your patients-the more you read on your patients the better your overall preparation.
USMLE World Internal Medicine Subsection GI
-The surgery exam is basically for an internal medicine resident to know what is a surgical patient and what they would need to ask surgery to do, there are no actual details of surgery or anatomy on the actual shelf.
Oral Exam Study Guide
-prepare the cases and this will serve double of prepping you for the oral cases and your exam!
MKSAP questions on GI.
-extremely high yield since this is a medicine exam effectively.
NMS Surgery Casebook
-while the NMS surgery book companion is great as a reference, this book is more useful as a combination prep for your oral cases preparation, hospital work, the shelf and step 2. It is still dense but with the time commitment is has a very high yield. One of the best big prep books out there.
Surgical Recall
This has tremendous utility as a surgical medical student but none for the actual exam. Always reference before entering the OR but this will not help for the SHELF which tests medical management, the exam is very similar to Internal Medicine. Very useful for surgical nomenclature and “pimping”
Abernathy’s Surgical Secrets
Very similar conceptually to surgery recall, available for free via shiffman year 3 resources online
NBME exam: very helpful, some questions seemed to appear on the shelf however no explanations. Typically people perform much better on this than the actual surgery shelf.
Case files Surgery– gives clear cut pictures on basic presentations, no nuance or depth that shelf questions will often probe at. Case files-most 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 surgery.
Blueprints Surgery: great for a firm basis of pathology and knowledge for reference, not a quick read.
Pretest Surgery-will provide questions on all the areas of surgery but not in SHELF format.
Pathoma: worth reading over for the GI sections at leaste 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 Surgery-found online or in the shared dropbox, this is the same thing as Pestana notes, the most high yield little book.
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.
Step Up to Medicine-emergency
-you need to know how to manage a patient emergently as a first year surgery resident handles medical management and ICU work.
Schwartz Surgery
If struggling with a topic, access major texts via accessmedicine via shiffman
Essentials of Surgery
Not useful for the shelf. The Wayne exam is drawn from this books clinical pearls, a document floats around that has these compiled. This book is also available via shiffman for free.
High Yield Topics
1. Indications for surgery is as far into surgery as any question gets, nothing will be asked about the technical aspect of individual surgeries. There may be questions on different interventional diagnoistics, contrast enema vs scope vs ct, etc.
2. Understand the gold standard diagnostic test and the contraindications and what we gain from it and what cannot be ruled out.
3. Understand electrolyes, what is normal, how to correct, big problems to watch out
4. Hyperkalemia
5. Hypernatremia
6. Acidosis
7. Alkalosis
8. Read an ABG
9. Biggest pimp topic, top cause of diseases
10. Top Causes of SBO, pancreatitis, for example
11. Preop/postop management Pestana does this well
12. Risks of surgery
13. Trauma management
14. Very little in terms of actual surgical procedures on the shelf
15. Compartment syndrome very high yield
16. Trauma algorithmàABC, primary survey vs secondary survey
17. Basic composition of acute abdomen
18. Diverticulitis
19. When to operate on a cholecystitis vs. non operative management
20. Understand post op complications
a. Dehiscence
b. Leaking
c. 5 Ws of fever
d. anastomotic leak
e. infection at the site of surgery
21. medication implications
22. mastectomy and lymphedema in the arm
23. 2-3 antibiotic questions, anaerobic coverage for acute abdomen
24. biliary tract understanding and pathologic differentiation
25. cholelithiasis, vs ascending cholangitis, vs choledocolithiasis, vs pancreatitis
26. charcots triad
27. raynauds pentad
28. becks triad
29. any combination of a mans name and a number eponyms are HUGE in surgery.
30. Sister mary joseph’s nodule.
31. DVTs
32. PE vs cardiac chest pain.
33. Virchows triad for thromboembolism-coagulopathy, stasis, vascular damage
34. Breast nodal distribution
35. Anatomy for the course and the steffes exam. Very minimal on the actual shelf exam.
36. Before an operation look up the landmarks, know any eponynmous anatomical structures.
37. Know the blood flow, lymphatic drainage, and nervous system relation for pimping.
38. Steffes exam: at least review the clinical pearls from OR and rounding in essentials of surgery. Document floating around.
39. Oral exam study guide is very helpful for the rotation, better than casefiles for the rotation.