Family Medicine Shelf Tips
Begin your NBME shelf exam study early and get in a regular habit of studying throughout the clerkship. This exam is too broad to rely on “cramming”
Good resources for the shelf:
Read about the patients you are seeing
This link http://chicago.medicine.uic.edu/cms/One.aspx?portalId=506244&pageId=18009237 links to a list of articles covering the vast majority of problems you will see during the clerkship. It is also tied to the national “Family Medicine Clerkship Curriculum” from which much of the shelf content is taken.
Supplement this case based reading by reviewing the following resources: Case Files: Family Medicine, Step Up to Medicine (ambulatory section)
Do a minimum of 5 FMCases
Do practice questions! These links will take you to the NBME site which describes the content of the exam
http://www.nbme.org/pdf/SubjectExams/SE_ContentOutlineandSampleItems.pdf
http://www.nbme.org/Schools/Subject-Exams/Subjects/clinicalsci_family-modular.html. Review pages 65-71 and 131-133. Unfortunately there are only 25 total questions here but at least it gives you a flavor for the style and content of the questions.
In preparation for the Family Medicine subject examination, students are encouraged to obtain question bank/book recommendations from their clinical faculty and do at least two question resources. Here are our concensus recommendations:
An on-line practice examination can be purchased from RoshReview, a 500+ NBME style questions item bank for $49 for 31 days, available at https://www.roshreview.com/fm.html.
Other practice questions: The consensus is that Pretest Family Medicine is the best alternative source for practice questions. If you are feeling comfortable with the Pretest questions consider signing up as a student member of the AAFP (it’s free) which gives you access to 1200 board review questions.
Begin your NBME shelf exam study early and get in a regular habit of studying throughout the clerkship. This exam is too broad to rely on “cramming”
Good resources for the shelf:
Read about the patients you are seeing
This link http://chicago.medicine.uic.edu/cms/One.aspx?portalId=506244&pageId=18009237 links to a list of articles covering the vast majority of problems you will see during the clerkship. It is also tied to the national “Family Medicine Clerkship Curriculum” from which much of the shelf content is taken.
Supplement this case based reading by reviewing the following resources: Case Files: Family Medicine, Step Up to Medicine (ambulatory section)
Do a minimum of 5 FMCases
Do practice questions! These links will take you to the NBME site which describes the content of the exam
http://www.nbme.org/pdf/SubjectExams/SE_ContentOutlineandSampleItems.pdf
http://www.nbme.org/Schools/Subject-Exams/Subjects/clinicalsci_family-modular.html. Review pages 65-71 and 131-133. Unfortunately there are only 25 total questions here but at least it gives you a flavor for the style and content of the questions.
In preparation for the Family Medicine subject examination, students are encouraged to obtain question bank/book recommendations from their clinical faculty and do at least two question resources. Here are our concensus recommendations:
An on-line practice examination can be purchased from RoshReview, a 500+ NBME style questions item bank for $49 for 31 days, available at https://www.roshreview.com/fm.html.
Other practice questions: The consensus is that Pretest Family Medicine is the best alternative source for practice questions. If you are feeling comfortable with the Pretest questions consider signing up as a student member of the AAFP (it’s free) which gives you access to 1200 board review questions.