Mock Me

Sometime tomorrow, emergency medicine residents all across the country will be sitting down with #2 pencils. It's that time of year again, mock EM boards. Bleh. Luckily, our program doesn't put too much weight on your scores, but I would like to at least improve on my performance from last year (which should be pretty doable, as I set the bar REALLY low).


Most of my time this year has been in the ED, so I think I am probably at least learning things more relevant to my profession. The last two days I have been taking practice tests, which range from "duh" answers to what-the-Hell-is-that syndrome-type questions. I generally find it's not good to hear of a condition for the first time ever during testing. Judging from the way the count of tests taken on the website has been going up rapidly over the past 3-4 days, at least I know I am in the company of fellow test-crammers.


Last year it took several months before we got results back as there was a program that was caught cheating. Some programs like to use their residents' scores as bragging rights for future applicants. At my program, we just take our applicants out to drink. This year, I think I will probably have to face the music a lot sooner.