Stay organized, at least mentally

  • Take notes, you can’t afford not to!

    Never ever study a new or unfamiliar subject without creating a quick summary and take home points. Chances are that in two weeks you will barely remember anything without going over it again and that, my friends, you can’t afford! Even the obvious (new) material will fade over time, making it difficult to compare and contrast (C&C) it with the new material. C&C, by the way, is essential to solidify and organize the knowledge (says me!).

  • Use note taking apps

    • Whatever you use, don’t use “onenote”! It’s unreliable and painfully slow.

    • I like google doc. Although not designed for this, it is reliable and fast. It beats the other ones, in terms of keyword search and synchyning speed. The outline feature helps too.
    • Tag your notes, so that later on you can find them easily with a quick keyword search. Here are some of my tags and their meanings:
      • WTF = I’ve never heard of it! Should I believe it?!
      • $$ = high yield
      • ^ ^! = forgettable, come back again!
      • ~F = formula

  • Use memory enhancing tools

    • Flash cards, Anki, … whatever that works for you.
    • The key is to be open to and constantly look for new learning methods.
    • For example see Anki enlightenment here.

Be familiar with unfamiliar Modalities

Learn or at least be familiar with the modalities you don’t do at your institution. Also be aware that showing common pathology on unfamiliar modalities happens a lot in the exam!

  • Absolutely high yield

    Cardiac MR

    • The fact that not all the radiology residents get exposure to cardiac imaging, doesn’t stop the boards to test you on it.
    • In fact you’ll be tested on every little detail of it!
    • So plan accordingly and learn it!

  • Low-medium yield

    Contrast enhanced US, Elastography (MR, US), MSK US, Dual Energy CT, New NM techniques in oncology and neuro, …

Learn your physics well

  • It felt like a good ¼ - ⅓ of the exam was physics! So imagine feeling a little good (also closer to the passing score) each time you know the answer for a question; it adds up quickly!
  • The best $10 I’ve ever spent was on an app called: Radiology Core: Physics Plu‪s . You’ll own ~600 quality physics questions with worth-reading explanations, and a reasonable, yet simple interface with minimal flaws.
  • Don’t just rely on 1 or 2 resources. Go find the answers to your questions, that’s the key. Heavily use the free online resources. Never forget to check youtube! Believe in MRI Questions, it is a reliable and accurate resource.

Omnipresent NM

  • Think about NM as a modality, not just an area. Otherwise you will lose bigtime.
  • You need to know every little piece of trivia, similar to any other modalities.
  • In each section (chest, GI/GU, MSK, breast, neuro,…) you’ll see many NM questions. So they have many occasions to test your knowledge.

ANATOMY, ANATOMY, ANATOMY

You get the point.

Q banks

  • A core review

    The king of the Qbanks in my opinion. This is the Qbank that you can use to learn while studying. It stands out with (almost) high quality explanations.

  • Don’t spend fortune on Qbanks

    Many programs provide free Radprimer subscription, use it, it’s good and some argue it is enough. I did NM and physics questions and I liked it.

  • Aunt Minnie

    Did you know that Aunt Minnie has a free categorized image-rich boardreview Q bank with quality explanations? Next time you go to the AM website check out the board review tab up there!

  • Others

    If you have learned the material already, you can do the questions of the other Qbanks in no time. For example you can easily do the entire BoardVital in less than 2 weeks, and honestly, if you decide not to do it at all, you will be just fine!!

Learn only from the masters of the game

  • Prometheus Lionhart (Crack the core)

    • He knows, and we all know that he knows.

  • Matt Covington, MD

    • He has a 5 star podcast.
    • He knows a lot about the boards and all of his materials are high yield.
    • Providing high yield board material in audio format is a game changer; you can keep a healthy active lifestyle and still study!
    • I wish I had time to listen to all his podcasts. The ¼ I listened to was absolutely great.

Professional social media

  • Get on RadDiscord, do it today!

    What is it you ask?

    Imagine ~700 radiology residents/fellows/attendings around the world are constantly exchanging knowledge, sharing resources, asking/answering questions, studying together, and even hosting high yield board review sessions by the best educators. Read more here.

  • Get on med twitter, stay informed

    For example, I learned about the RadDiscord on twitter. As a bonus point you can also fool your limbic system with twitter! While having fun being on social media during your breaks, you are actually being exposed to many great cases shared by reliable people, obviously if you engineer your feed properly. Win Win!

General/Misc.

  • LEARN, memorization not gonna help

    At least in my exam, there were a very few questions on forgettable numbers or trivia.

  • Use board reviews as incentive to study

    Get out there and take cases. It enhances learning.

  • life saving easy points
    • There are enough easy questions to pass the exam and not to be bothered by losing points on alien questions sent from another universe!
    • This applies to people who have studied reasonably and who didn’t have bad luck for any reason.
    • Disclaimer: I haven’t passed the exam yet and this is just my impression.
  • And the remote exam?
    • As long as you have a reliable internet connection, you should be fine.
    • It is the exact same experience as with the ABR practice exam, which is accessible ahead of time.
    • ABR people are really responsive both before and during exam itself.
    • I recommend creating a limited account on your computer system when using the third party exam proctor software (It was Proctorio for our exam). Better to be safe I guess.

Take home

  • Stay mentally organized, use enhancers.
  • Take cardiac, physics and NM seriously.
  • My favorite resources: Crack the core, a core review, the physics app, and radiology review podcast.
  • Get on RadDiscord asap.
  • If you focus and study efficiently, you can pass even only with the easy (and maybe a few moderate level) points.
  • Remote exam is way better than what you expect! you can have ice cream straight from your own freezer and eat it in your bed during the breaks!