ABIM 2008 Study Group

As third year internal medicine residents we prepared for the 2008 ABIM (American Board of Internal Medicine) exam as one group. I initiated this project as a personal planner to prepare for the board. Later on, I introduced this plan to my colleagues who found it helpful. I am blogging this since we have 100% passing rate that year and to share the plan with other board takers.

• When did we start? We started in April since majority of my class have finished call rotations and can comply more with the plan agenda.

• Reading materials: This is was hard choice since many board review books and series are available in the marker and few residents started preparing from different sources. However, I was looking for something concise, focused and brief. I sent questionnaires to former graduates of our program who passed the boards asking for their recommendations. I came to conclusion that MedStudy published by MedStudy Corporation has the best reviews among our residents and across the US medical residents.

• Questions materials: Again having the same issue finding the right one, but we concluded that MKSAP 14 multiple choice questions published by the American College of Physician (ACP) was one of the best and covers majority of the ABIM topics and has the similar style as well. Other source that I personally used as well were: MedStudy MCQ’s book and Medscape board review self assessment questions from acponline.org. Click here to download.

• Schedule: We planned to finish reading and discussing the 5 books of MedStudy within 2 months period (before graduation) by assigning 15-20 pages per week. We finished as planned.

• Follow-up: weekly meeting (Thursday morning) for 1 hour discussing the pages we read and doing an average of 10-20 questions from MKSAP bank. These meeting kept us on the same reading pace. Questions and unclear points were discussed and shared with our faculty attendings.

• Result: 100% ABIM passing rate.