WE HAVE MOVED TO: A Theory of Living
As any third year medical student can tell you, shelf exams are a bummer. You spend your 4-12 weeks learning all you can about the way Ob/IM/FM/Surgery/whatever is practiced in the real world, then at the end of it, in the last week or two, you're supposed to pour a book's worth of knowledge into your brain. The incredibly frustrating thing is that what is done in practice vs what is done on a test doesn't always match up... but you're expected to know both versions.
All in all, though, I've found them largely easier than first and second year tests (except the Surgery shelf, that was hard). That probably has something to do with the fact that, even if the above issue crops up from time to time, you've more or less run around a hospital for several weeks practicing what's on the shelf exam. That's real time learning and experiential learning.
Anyway, I say all this to explain that I have a shelf exam on Friday and will be largely absent from here until then. Good luck to other medical students with Shelfs. And especially good luck to second years. It hasn't quite hit yet, but second year starts to get a little dark some time in the next month or two.
