Passing the General Surgery Oral Board Exam

I recently passed the oral exam. My preparation included this book, Snyder's How to Win, Cameron's throughout residency, and the Osler prep course just prior to the exam. This book deserves two stars, but considering the lack of materials out there, I tacked on one more.The Good: Provides the architecture for good answers. It gives effective tips on questions to ask for the history, physical, and workup. Despite what others say, you'll sometimes need to ask for more H&P information. The recommended treatments are OK and sometimes give solid descriptions of procedures (e.g. it provides a perfect synopsis for a Whipple). It provides 'curveballs' for scenarios, like breast cancer in a pregnant woman or a trauma patient who needs an ex-lap but has an obviously bad head trauma. The curveballs are thought provoking and are scenarios a lot of textbooks inadequately cover. It also describes 'clean kills'- stuff you must not forgot or shouldn't mention.The Bad: Initially I thought this book had wide breadth. Reviewing my own exam questions, however, this book didn't cover a few scenarios. The scenarios it missed were very reasonable and within a general surgeon's breadth of care (never thought I'd side with the ABS...). My main problem, however, is that while the book tells you about curveballs, *it doesn't tell you how to deal with them*. It's infuriating. If you're trying to cram, it'll just make you terrified. As such, the text becomes a workbook. Most of the answers given are adequate (superior to Safe Answers and somewhat more solid than How to Win). You'll need to teach yourself, though, how to hit the curveballs. Also, I dislike calling errors 'clean kills' where you'll automatically fail. Some of the 'clean kills' listed are legit- if you don't do a FNA on a thyroid nodule, you're in trouble. But others are recoverable errors, and the oral exam tests composure and perseverance as well as knowledge.Overall: This book gives you a framework on how to answer oral board questions. It covers many but not all scenarios. You'll have to augment and do a lot of personal work to make this a decent book. If you do buy it, get it a few months ahead of the exam and answer the curveballs. Then augment it with scenarios from other sources using the framework the book proffers.

It is a great book to get you in the right mindset. It includes the basic information that we should all know and the curveballs and such are good stepping points for you to base your studying off of. There is some criticism since it doesn't include what the answers to the curveballs are, but that would make the book to long of a read and each curve ball can be handled differently. My oral board exam definitely including the basics and the curve balls. Definitely recommend.

This book barely has one chapter to inguinal hernia and none for ventral hernia, complex abdominal wall closures... hello?

Deemed by many as the gold standard for board prep. Does a great job of telling you about what things TO DO and NOT to do

Not the most uptodate but gives you subjects to focus on and pitfalls to avoid.

Excellent

Well written

Not worth the money. If this type of resource appeals to you, "How to Win" is better. I gave this away.