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Jack Krasuski, MD
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drjack@americanphysician.com

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Sleep and Memory Incorporation for Board Exams

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Sleep is important for a lot of reasons. One critical function of sleep is memory incorporation. This is when memories go from short-term storage into long-term incorporation. Obviously, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to study all day and then lose everything that you put in your brain because your sleep is inefficient or disrupted. Here are some things that can help your sleep to be more complete, deeper, and more effective. Number 1: Know your sleep number –… Click to Read More

Recognizing Zebras In Gastroenterology Clinical Vignettes

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The board exams pride themselves on not presenting questions that may trick you. In other words, the questions are fair and clinically relevant. This means that the majority of the questions will be related to a common form of a medical disorder. After all, these are the conditions that most of the physicians spend their days assessing and treating. However, it is also important for the clinician to identify the rare disorder. Hence, the question is, how to differentiate whether… Click to Read More

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Assessed My Knowledge for the Boards

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Studying for a board exam can seem like a daunting task; the amount of knowledge for the boards can be overwhelming. Finding time to fit studying into our busy lives is a struggle. Our natural inclination may be to just power through all of the topics as best as we can. How do you start the process, and where do you focus? Taking the time to assess our knowledge gaps and approach to questions is a critical first step. It… Click to Read More

Pump Iron for Your Board Exam

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I think you should pump iron for your board exam – both literally and figuratively. A board exam is unlike almost anything else we encounter in our busy daily work as physicians. It requires several hours of extended, high performance to interface with the material presented, interpret it, and come up with the answers they are looking for. To succeed in an environment like this, I suggest it is highly relevant to practice up to this level of intensity of… Click to Read More

VIDEO: What to Do if You Fail Your Board Exam

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What Do You Do If You Fail Your Medical Board Exam?  Well, the first thing you should do if you fail your board exam is to take some time to come to terms with what has happened.  When you first open up that envelope and you see that you failed the exam, it will hit you like a ton of bricks. You don’t need to do anything. You do not need to start studying. Just take it easy, sleep… Click to Read More

5 Hacks to Get Your Board Exam Studying on Track

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It’s easy to get derailed and have your board exam study session go into a tailspin.  When you are not having fun, every diversion can turn into a time trap. One thing you can do is invest your passion into learning new material or being totally up to date on your areas of interest. Here are five more hacks you can use to keep your board exam studying in the “power zone.” Paradoxically, the best study plans involve time away… Click to Read More

Levels of Board Exam Questions

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One way I’ve found categorizing board exam questions helpful is to view them in a hierarchy of three levels, each one building on the previous one and requiring a more use of one’s clinical judgment. My three levels are: Know It →  Recognize It →  Decide It Now let me explain, and I promise this will be practically helpful and, I believe, comforting even in preparing for your board exams. KNOW IT This lowest level of question relies almost exclusively… Click to Read More

Oncology Treatments in Specific Patient Populations

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Prepping for the Medical Oncology Board Exam? Get a comprehensive Medical Oncology Board Review Course from The Pass Machine to get your board prep on track. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ There is a high percentage of questions based on treatment in medical board exams because the reason patients see physicians is to seek appropriate treatment. Three aspects of treatment are tested by specialty board exams: Details of specific treatment modalities Treatments by disease variant and in particular patient population Treatment algorithms The focus… Click to Read More

4 Things You Can Do Right Now to Avoid Procrastination

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It’s hard to dive into things that are big, amorphous, and not necessarily fun. Studying for a board exam can fit all of these criteria and be something that is easy to put off again and again. When I took my NBME part one exam, I hated Anatomy. I spent most of the year studying Pharmacology and Physiology because I love them. Studying Pharmacology and Physiology for me is like eating chocolate; great. But studying anatomy just wasn’t doing it… Click to Read More

The Best Way to Lock in What You Study for the Board Exams

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There are countless ways to study for the board exams, and you may already know what works best for you. But if you find that you study materials and then do not really remember them when you need them, you might want to try this program. The first priority when you study for the board exams is to have accurate targeting of the material you want to learn. When I work with individuals, I look at their board scores and… Click to Read More

Recognizing Zebras in Cardiology Board Exam Clinical Vignettes

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Every multiple-choice exam question is presented to you on the cardiology board exam only after being vetted to be clinically relevant and fair. (Note that there are a certain percentage – maybe 10-15% – of MCQs included in exams that are under assessment and not counted in results until they pass muster. This does lead exam candidates to sometimes scratch their heads when reading poorly written questions. These questions will likely be revised or retired.) Simply put, the boards are… Click to Read More

Treatment Interventions In General Surgery Board Exams

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Prepping for a General Surgery Board Exam? Get a comprehensive General Surgery Qualifying or General Surgery Certifying review course from The Pass Machine to get your board prep on track. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ The knowledge of the test-taker regarding the details of numerous treatment interventions gets tested on the board exams. It is important to know the situations in which to select a specific treatment intervention. In addition to this, you should also have knowledge of the details of particular treatment interventions.… Click to Read More

Decrease Study Time…Increase Impact

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Whether preparing for an exam related to maintenance of certification, a primary exam of certification, or some other type of important exam, you undoubtedly have many reading materials at your disposal. In these scenarios, our effort is likely devoted to reading and re-reading material again and again. Unfortunately, though, scientific literature actually indicates that this sort of process of learning is not optimal, and may actually take a fair bit more time than a much simpler process—trying to recall the… Click to Read More

Treatment Algorithms in General Surgery Board Exams

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Prepping for a General Surgery Board Exam? Get a comprehensive General Surgery Qualifying or General Surgery Certifying review course from The Pass Machine to get your board prep on track. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Clinical knowledge is primarily tested in medical board exams. Commonly asked questions on the general surgery board exams assess the knowledge regarding treatment interventions. The following three different aspects of treatment can be tested: Specific treatment intervention details Treatments by disease variants and in specific populations Treatment algorithm This… Click to Read More

Board Exam Study Procrastination

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I received a request from a colleague preparing for their board exam. Today I tackle this fairly common problem by explaining procrastination, its formation and treatment. Procrastination is a type of avoidance, and avoidance is a common strategy used by many to cope with unpleasant life situations and also is part of several psychiatric conditions. Any disorder with “phobia” in its name is a type of avoidance. The problem with avoidance is that often it is counter-productive and makes the… Click to Read More

Sleep and Board Exams

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I’m about to tell you something so obvious about sleep and board exams that you may want to throw something at me. Despite the apparent obviousness, many exam candidates still will make the mistake I’m about to describe and do so for entirely understandable reasons. Let me explain. On the day (or several days) prior to your board exam, your anxiety level likely will increase. You may realize you are not as prepared as you would like to be and… Click to Read More

VIDEO: 5 Tips to Minimize Procrastinating on Your Board Exam Studies

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 Welcome.  It’s Dr. Jack and I have 5 tips for you on how to minimize procrastinating on your board exam studies. Tip 1: De-Emotionalize the Job You Have to Do My first tip is based on a thought experiment.  I’d like you to take a minute to imagine that you have a clone of yourself, and your clone is identical to you.  They have the same bright smile and winning personality that you do.  There is only a single… Click to Read More

Fear of Board Exam Failure

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Fear can make us behave in counterproductive ways, including how we respond to an upcoming medical board exam. We have set ways of responding to fear – fight, flight or freeze. Classically, fear is defined as an emotion triggered by imminent danger, as we would experience if we saw an aggressive person running toward us or if we heard breaking glass in our house as we were lying in bed. Anxiety is defined as an emotion triggered by non-imminent dangers… Click to Read More

Using Rational Statistics to Improve “Educated Guessing”

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So, you’ve spent the hours reviewing all of the important details for your board exam. You’ve done your best to target the weak areas, spending extra time focusing on topics that you didn’t quite master the first time through. And, perhaps most importantly, you’ve spent a considerable amount of time and effort doing practice questions and exams—all written by different authors—completed with time constraints in a variety of environments. By all measures, you are ready for this exam. Once in… Click to Read More

Recognizing Zebras in General Surgery Clinical Vignettes

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Prepping for a General Surgery Board Exam? Get a comprehensive General Surgery Qualifying or General Surgery Certifying review course from The Pass Machine to get your board prep on track. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Medical exam boards take pride in clinically relevant and fair multiple-choice questions. This simply means the board is not trying to trick you. Most of the case vignettes describe a patient that has a common form of the disease. After all, we as physicians spend the majority of our… Click to Read More

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