Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Review Books
- First Aid for Ob/Gyn Good overviews
and/or First Aid for Step II
CK
- Blueprints for Ob/Gyn Absolute must! Nice overviews and quick read.
Case Books
- Case Files for Ob/Gyn Absolute must! Excellent book. Worked well
throughout the rotation. Try to read twice with rapid
read through second time 2 days before test.
Question Books
- Pretest for Ob/Gyn Nice selection of questions with good explanations.
Question Banks
- USMLE World Great questions (about 200), similar to shelf exam.
- APGO questions (online) Very nice-requires password from Dr. Page
Other Resources Students Used: Kaplan Q book, Q bank (ok), First Aid OR
(especially if first rotation/before surgery), First Aid Wards (especially if first
rotation), High Yield
If you start with OB or nights, try to learn the stages of labor early on (Dr.
Christianson will give you a great lecture on this during your first day). It is very
helpful to learn how to read monitors (fetal heart tones and how they relate to
maternal contractions, i.e. different types of decelerations). If you start with clinic,
it is helpful to review what labs/checks are done at prenatal visits. Also, review
your STDs, bacterial vaginosis, and Candida infections. If you start with Gyn,
review ectopic and molar pregnancies, what a D & C is, indications for a
hysterectomy and the relevant anatomy. If you do OB/GYN before your surgery
rotation and have no other experience in the OR, it’s a good idea to review OR
procedure and etiquette either in a book like First Aid for OR, the first chapter of
Surgical Recall, or with classmates/fourth years that can pass along advice.
Ob: Memorize the cardinal movements of labor within the first few days. It will
help you understand the birthing process and be able to practice how to really
deliver properly right from the start. Understand the monitors!
Gyn: If you are going to be scrubbing into a surgery, participate in the pre-op
evaluation and try to read about the indications for the procedure for your
particular patient prior to the surgery. Be prepared to be a bystander but also be
ready to jump in and help when given a chance to do so.
Generally speaking, each hospital is different, but days on the floor commonly go
as follows:
Ob: pre-round/round on patients in the morning, review of the L&D “board,”
monitoring of laboring patients/deliveries/C-sections/triage throughout day
Gyn: pre-round/round on patients, surgeries through morning/early afternoon or
ER consults, lectures
SHELF: Study all of Ob during the Ob month and all of Gyn during the Gyn month
(if your rotation is split up this way). You can review both during the last week
(since you generally tend to have the week of the SHELF free of rotation due to the
OSCE and SHELF Review by Dr. Christensen).
If you use the textbook, try to read through the respective section during the first
2-3 weeks of the rotation to get an orientation to the general principles then re-
emphasize the concepts with the other review books you choose to use. Case files
is great to go through twice before the exam.
Dr. Christensen’s review at the end is money for the SHELF. Try to attend
it as he will review the major concepts of Ob/Gyn.
Sinai Grace There can be lots of down time, so bring materials and
be ready to study. The staff are very student friendly.
Very nice hours (no weekends), but two weeks of
nights that can be very slow.