OITE woes

Hi guys,

Just took the OITE as an intern and didnt do so hot. I kind of expected that since I didnt have a structured reading schedule. I read OKU ad hoc, and a couple chapters of Miller plus 2004-2006 questions from the San Fran website. I didnt bomb the test outright, but didnt do particularly well either.

How do you beat this exam? Ive talked to a couple of seniors and most said that they split thier time between textbooks and review books. What has worked for you guys in the past? I guess I can sit down and read the entire four volume set of Campbells but Im not sure if that would be an efficient use of time.

as an aside, have any of you made up a reading schedule I can use? I have a couple ideas but I want to get some more opinions. I dont want to screw up on this again! Thanks.

Mr M

here's the deal. you can just do questions over and over again and eventually ace the OITE (if you do enough questions). however, doing well on the OITE is not the real goal. as cheesy as it sounds, the real goal is creating a foundation for lifelong learning and passing the ABOS part 1. i am sure you are aware an entirely different group of people write the ABOS exam, so memorizing old OITE questions is not the end all be all.

here is what i did over five years. if you are not a textbook person (like me), you can accomplish this by reading main journals like JBJS, JAAOS, JOT, etc. if you read enough intros and discussions of papers over a period of five years, you will be amazed at how much you have accrued. this is even if the actual study you are reading is total crap. probably the hardest to do, but the most beneficial, is to really focus on reading every JAAOS article from the last 5 years. these are nice summaries of topics written by some of the people who actually write ABOS questions.

obviously this plan should be supplemented by case specific reading throughout your residency. for instance, if we were doing some wild hip revision, i would find everything i could in medline about how people were approaching these problem cases. that takes a mindless hook holding pgy2 case and actually gets you thinking about the real issues at hand. the science and theory often don't get talked about in the OR because everyone is so focused on the actual doing of the hands on procedure (i.e. here is how you get out a well cemented stem that you have to change).

the whole process of building your foundation is a daunting task. if you keep looking for a magic reading plan or someone to tell you what to do, you will be looking around as a pgy5 and crapping your pants thinking about the boards. the most important thing is do something everyday, just like exercising. whatever works for you is what works for you.

as far as the OITES go, 2 months before, abandon whatever your reading plan is and just start doing questions. look up the answers if you don't totally get it because some of the SFORP explanations are either wrong or don't really get at the meat of the question. also take the time to go through the self assessment exams and the HSS question book. if you do all of those and don't rock the exam, you probably have a learning disability. haha. have fun.

Don't worry about the OITE as an intern. I took it cold turkey then.

I personally read the most recent OKU and Miller's review the two months before the exam. In addition, I would go through the last several years of OITE tests. There are always some repeaters and similar questions every year.

why programs make interns take the OITE is beyond me, its pointless. i'll bet the average intern is confident on less than 10 questions they answer on the test--the rest is guessing.


recipe for OITE success::

--read Miller review at least once (some important chapters--hand, F&A, tumor, sports--twice).

--read through the questions/answers for the last 2 to 3 years' intraining exams

--go through self assessment exam question discs from 2002 to 2007--any further back will be outdated--answer the questions, and read the explanations. this is a lot of work--almost 2000 questions.

--you will find at least 10 intraining questions are taken directly from previous years' tests, as well as the self-assessment exams. 10 questions can be the difference between 70th, and 90th percentile.

that being said, this year's results are in.

as someone who has taken and passed the boards, I can tell you the OITE is a very different exam. the oite is emphasized in some programs and underemphasized in others. therefore, some programs have meaningful reviews while others expect the residents to "go it alone" and work on their own time to prepare.

one thing you have to understand is that the difference between a low score and medium to high score is about 5-10 questions.

some find the boards to be much harder than the oite (as scary as that sounds) but some find it the same. i think the fact that the boards are taken under "do or die" conditions and the oite is something you take on your home turf can have a lot to do with ones interpretation of how difficult this exam is.

my recommendations are as follows:

try to read before all your cases - especially the ones you are NOT interested in - this will get you to think and strengthen your knowledge base in this area. chances are if your going into sports, you are not reading about hand in your free time.

dont study your strengths - if you rock at trauma, spend time understanding foot and ankle or hand (one of the hardest areas to excel on)

read oku for the oite. many of the questions are referenced DIRECTLY from this sourse, so that has to tell you something.

miller is high yield but I would read that last, kind of like a refresher before the big day. miller is great, but in my opinion, it is thought of too highly - the most recent version is dated about 4-5 years!

old questions will get you some freebies. do these!

SAE questions are harder but also high yield.

lastly, remember that you are going up agaist some of the best test takers in the country so while you may have rocked the usmle or mcats, you are now being graded against others who have as well.

hang in there. remember, the goal is not doing well on the oite, its developing a good, consistent system of learning throughout your residency and then passing the boards.

t.o.

i would agree with all who have posted. i don't really put too much emphasis on the OITE. the exam is most important for predicting failure when the scores are under the 30th percentile. other than that, it is used by programs to prove that there residents are smarter than other programs residents. the OITE is easy to teach to; the boards are not. so listen to the previous advice. for the OITE, review books including miller are helpful and questions, questions, and oh yeah more questions.

to build a good foundation in orthopaedics, OKU is a great start. if you want to get a good article foundation, get some friends together and go through the OITE questions and review the references. in my program, i did this with 5 other residents for three years (reviewing each years OITE). this was the best way, other than review books, to get to the basis for all of the questions.

all in all, you should concentrate on getting a good foundation in orthopaedics, not scoring well on the exam. if you do that, the other will come.