Canadian Boards?

[contrast reaction]

I'm a Canadian trained in the US and am planning to take the Canadian boards.

Is there any nuclear medicine on it?
OB US?

Any tips?

[Lactic Folly]

Originally Posted by contrast reaction

I'm a Canadian trained in the US and am planning to take the Canadian boards.

Is there any nuclear medicine on it?
OB US?

Any tips?

Yes
Yes
Know the format and how it differs from the US - adjust studying accordingly.

[contrast reaction]

Thanks LF.

I basically have no resources. Can you -- or anyone else -- provide an example of how to take a case?

Appreciate it much!

[ac84]

Best bet coming from an American program would be to look for a Canadian review course, as the style of the exam is somewhat different.

Also, check out the royal college website for info on the exam.

http://rcpsc.medical.org/information...&submit=Select

[Lactic Folly]

Agree. Ottawa's course offers a mock oral and OSCE (have not attended but others liked it):

http://ottawaradcme.com/_documents/o...v5_%282%29.pdf

There are also hotseat (practice oral cases) sessions for residents at the CAR meeting.

[contrast reaction]

Thanks everyone, including Ian.

Passed my Canadian boards!

[Lactic Folly]

Congratulations!!
Did you find any of the suggestions above helpful - if not, what was?

[contrast reaction]

Originally Posted by Lactic Folly

Did you find any of the suggestions above helpful - if not, what was?

I think the biggest help was the review course. I wasn't able to attend since my fellowship schedule stunk, but my friend was able to get the Powerpoints from Ottawa and fill me in on the OSCE/Mock Oral style.

Familiarity with the exam, especially the OSCE, is key. The exam is stressful enough without having to deal with an unfamiliar format.

For reference for those taking it in the future:
Writtens: ~150 questions ABR style. 80% clinical, 20% physics. I think it was 4 hours and I had plenty of time. Someone told me that there was about 15% recalls. I didn't have access to recalls, so can't say for sure. No CanMEDS questions.

OSCE: 10 stations + 2 break stations, 14 minutes each. I thought this was fairly straight forward, but if I didn't do practice OSCEs, I would have failed. Never felt short on time. It was basically the 10 ABR sections (nucs, ir, gi, gu, neuro, etc.) with about 10-15 questions each. I didn't get any CanMEDS or stats on the exam. I was really surprised about some of the questions they asked, as I felt that some of the questions were 'fellow level'.

Orals: 8 stations + 2 break stations, 30 minutes each. Every station had 5 cases that the examiner would make sure that you got through. Examiners were generally nice and helpful; they steered me back on track. Every case was multimodality: for instance, CXR - describe, diff, other modality? Then shows a CT, describe, diff, management? Or, for neuro, head CT, then MRI, then MRA, then angio, etc. Again, I was surprised about the complexity of some cases.

Overall good experience, but definitely different than ABR. Taking all 3 parts of the exam in a single year is stressful. Also, it's really hard to self-assess how well you did on an exam like this. I thought I flunked the writtens and orals, but obviously not.

[Lactic Folly]

Thanks contrast reaction for taking the time to come back and debrief us! It's always helpful to hear from the experiences of those who have gone through the exam.