All U.S. students take them for each core rotation. Now, if your trying to convince some jerk-off state medical board to approve your school, it should seem just like the ones back home.

Nothing is wrong with any type of review. People pay a lot of money to take this course and its part of our cirriculum. As far as the self exam, it souldn't be a problem for a well prepare future physician. Maybe we should throw out path, anatomy and pharm also.

i also think shelf exams are a good idea.

I know this is an old thread, but how many shelf exams are there?

None in basic sciences.

__________________
"Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat."

--Theodore Roosevelt

If this school have shelf exams... right now w/o letting students know ahead of time... at least 70% will fail it. A lot of students here only study what is given on the powerpoints.... very few go beyond.

So no... there is no shelf exam

I am personally in favor of the shelf exam because 1. it will motivate students to study harder 2. it will weed out students that are not serious about medicine 3. it will make school look better. 4. more serious students will look into this school. 5. overall, it will help this school to become better and more studnets will appy for it.

it would be nice if they can put shelf exams into total % of final grade... something like

10% 1st exam
20% 2nd exam
20% 3rd exam
25% final exam
25% shelf exam

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CYL, Compassion MD
"When I die, bury me with all my medical books!"

Went through that on Saba....it's a less than desirable situation, IMHO since the scoring of shelfs is not at all transparent, nor are the questions well-written: They are RETIRED USMLE questions, some of them were retired because the answer listed was wrong, or no correct answer was offered.

In some subjects, (especially Neuro) there are a large variety of terms for the same structures...and you may not learn the terms they're questioning, at least by that name. BTW, I did quite well on the neuro exam, but it was very stressful.

Finally, it encourages teaching to the shelf, which is worse than teaching to the USMLE since the information is old and outdated, or wrong. I'm happy not having shelfs here.

__________________
"Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat."

--Theodore Roosevelt

i think shelf exams are a very good review to see exactly where you stand in your quest to passing the USMLE. it's a shame SE does not provide students the opportunity to take these exams.

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I'm like Internationally-known

btw they are not all retired USMLE questions, that is a misnomer. some of them are but there are still new questions being generated for the shelves.

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I'm like Internationally-known

Got a cite for that? The NBME has proposed questions for the boards that are part of the boards (one entire blocks WORTH of questions, in fact). They don't give them up early. If they did, it would be possible to get books of nothing BUT ACTUAL board questions, not board-like questions, or retired board questions.

But it still doesnt address the issue of scoring: The shelf scores are normed to a mean of 500 with a SD of 100..each test is given a conversion to % right, but that still doesn't equate to actual performance. Schools then 'adjust' the score in some way, again with no transparency. So you really don't know what your score is, or how you did compared to anyone else.

And if the shelfs are useful for testing knowledge, then why have a final AND a shelf? The NBME says in their 2007 subject exam info guide that they are supposed to be finals by themselves...(pg 4). What if the shelf tests you on subjects you haven't been exposed to yet (the behavioral science test, given after psych has biostats in it as well, for example)?

Sorry, I've taken shelfs in enough subjects to know that they're an intrusion as used. And medical students don't need any more time wasters. They don't help you study for the course, they may help study for course material by exposing you to things that weren't covered - but studying for the shelf (a far-off benefit, perhaps) isn't an immediate benefit like scoring well on the school finals and getting good grades.

__________________
"Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat."

--Theodore Roosevelt