First a little background about me. I am a pretty decent written test taker, studied engineering in college and excelled in math and sciences. The anesthesia written exam was not hard for me; through college and medical school I did well on most written exams with little preparation. That said, I am not a public speaker, I loathe public debates. I stumble over my words, stick my foot in my mouth and get cold sweats when I speak in front of a crowd. I did not run for any political or student body offices. In a nutshell, I am not an eloquent speaker.
Now that you have the background, let me run you through my four attempts at the oral exam.
1) I thought I could do it myself and in fact I thought I did ok. I studied lots of videos and books to get the knowledge down.
FAIL
2) More of the same...
FAIL
3) Okay, another year and several thousands of dollars lost prepping for my third exam, this time I signed up for Dr. Jensen's Anesthesiology board review class because it is the gold standard and has been around a long time. I travelled to Texas and participated in the classes, I listened to all of his board tapes. I also purchased half of the question sets from Dr. George's UltimateBoardPrep and practiced...by myself (don't make the same mistake I did). I also had access to his online videos which I thought were very good....
FAIL
4) Frustration and depression had already set in the year prior, now I was wondering if I needed to look at another career like mechanical engineering (my degree). I decided to try another go with Dr. George's Ultimate Board Prep because I really enjoyed studying his practice sets and his online videos. This time I purchased the other half of the practice questions and four mock exams (by Skype), the first of which was with Dr. George himself. Without any condescension he explained to me that my problem was not the knowledge, but how I expressed it. In a nutshell I learned that I needed to practice talking with an examiner. After that I changed my study focus and gave the practice set questions to my wife and then she would ask me the questions and I would then have to speak the answers out loud whereas before it was all in my head (she had not clue if I was right!). I then had three more mock exams with UBP professors and by the last one the doc said I was ready...
PASS!!! Holy freakin cow, hell froze over!!!
Long story short, after weeks of missed work to study, $8000 dollars in board fees, >$6000 dollars in George/Jensen study reviews I finally passed that ridiculous exam!
With experience I can offer these two un-biased reviews:
Ultimate Board Prep: Dr. George and his crew are top notch and very kind, the one-on-one video conference interview with Dr. George was the single most helpful piece of studying in the whole 4 years. I also enjoyed the board question review books as most of the actual board questions I received are in the similar format as his practice questions. The full course will help you with both aspects of the exam, knowledge and oral expression.
Jensen Anesthesiology Board Review: Dr. Jensen is an amazing man and has done a lot for us. His course was a bit less expensive but I wish there were more one on one discussion. A lot of knowledge is shared but I felt that the format differed from the actual exam and thus the answers were not on the tip of my tongue during the actual exam.
Verdict: UBP. I have no regrets for having taken both but I felt that I received better preparation from Dr. George's course. If you could only take one it would be UBP, hands down. Bare minimum get his practice sets, watch the videos, and then get a set of mock exams.
Good luck! Breathe! It will pass, enjoy life!
Now that you have the background, let me run you through my four attempts at the oral exam.
1) I thought I could do it myself and in fact I thought I did ok. I studied lots of videos and books to get the knowledge down.
FAIL
2) More of the same...
FAIL
3) Okay, another year and several thousands of dollars lost prepping for my third exam, this time I signed up for Dr. Jensen's Anesthesiology board review class because it is the gold standard and has been around a long time. I travelled to Texas and participated in the classes, I listened to all of his board tapes. I also purchased half of the question sets from Dr. George's UltimateBoardPrep and practiced...by myself (don't make the same mistake I did). I also had access to his online videos which I thought were very good....
FAIL
4) Frustration and depression had already set in the year prior, now I was wondering if I needed to look at another career like mechanical engineering (my degree). I decided to try another go with Dr. George's Ultimate Board Prep because I really enjoyed studying his practice sets and his online videos. This time I purchased the other half of the practice questions and four mock exams (by Skype), the first of which was with Dr. George himself. Without any condescension he explained to me that my problem was not the knowledge, but how I expressed it. In a nutshell I learned that I needed to practice talking with an examiner. After that I changed my study focus and gave the practice set questions to my wife and then she would ask me the questions and I would then have to speak the answers out loud whereas before it was all in my head (she had not clue if I was right!). I then had three more mock exams with UBP professors and by the last one the doc said I was ready...
PASS!!! Holy freakin cow, hell froze over!!!
Long story short, after weeks of missed work to study, $8000 dollars in board fees, >$6000 dollars in George/Jensen study reviews I finally passed that ridiculous exam!
With experience I can offer these two un-biased reviews:
Ultimate Board Prep: Dr. George and his crew are top notch and very kind, the one-on-one video conference interview with Dr. George was the single most helpful piece of studying in the whole 4 years. I also enjoyed the board question review books as most of the actual board questions I received are in the similar format as his practice questions. The full course will help you with both aspects of the exam, knowledge and oral expression.
Jensen Anesthesiology Board Review: Dr. Jensen is an amazing man and has done a lot for us. His course was a bit less expensive but I wish there were more one on one discussion. A lot of knowledge is shared but I felt that the format differed from the actual exam and thus the answers were not on the tip of my tongue during the actual exam.
Verdict: UBP. I have no regrets for having taken both but I felt that I received better preparation from Dr. George's course. If you could only take one it would be UBP, hands down. Bare minimum get his practice sets, watch the videos, and then get a set of mock exams.
Good luck! Breathe! It will pass, enjoy life!
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