Rating: 
Summary: Help with Re-Certification blues...
Review: Once upon a time, when physicians passed the Internal Medicine Boards, they remained certified for life. This is no longer the case. Nowadays, in order to remain Board Certified, we have to take the exam again and again every ten years. Being Certified will not - unfortunately - increase your reimbursement, but you'll still need it for your HMO and hospital re-credentialing. Dr. Bradley Mittman, a practicing Internist, stepped up to the task of helping the busy practitioner to prepare for the demanding Boards. I attended his recent weekend-long Board Review Seminar...which was snappy, well paced and very helpful. His books are very concise, and peppered with smart mnemonics... they will help you get it all together before the exam.
Rating:
Summary: Help with Re-Certification blues...
Review: Once upon a time, when physicians passed the Internal Medicine Boards, they remained certified for life. This is no longer the case. Nowadays, in order to remain Board Certified, we have to take the exam again and again every ten years. Being Certified will not - unfortunately - increase your reimbursement, but you'll still need it for your HMO and hospital re-credentialing. Dr. Bradley Mittman, a practicing Internist, stepped up to the task of helping the busy practitioner to prepare for the demanding Boards. I attended his recent weekend-long Board Review Seminar...which was snappy, well paced and very helpful. His books are very concise, and peppered with smart mnemonics... they will help you get it all together before the exam.
Rating:
Summary: Definitely worked for me...
Review: This book was a major reason I passed my Internal Medicine boards this time. Right, I'd taken the exam many times and missed each time by a few points, which was getting to be a major pain in the a--. I had every imaginable internal medicine board review study aids, which did not come through for me. After I got a hold of the Frontrunners Syllabus, I actually passed by 18 points. I'm a a huge believer in this resource and tell any friends of mine who are looking to do it right the first time! I obviously recommend this book highly and give it a major thumbs-up.
Rating:
Summary: Passed easily. Wonderful review. Excellent resource.
Review: This was a super internal medicine board review for the exam. I easily passed my exam. Definitely recommend Frontrunners Syllabus if you want to pass the exam and especially if you want to score well.
Rating:
Summary: EXCELLENT SYLLABUS! LOVED THE COURSE!
Review: Very thorough, concise, well-organized. Great for the internal medicine I.M. boards. While I didn't get my Q&A for free, like some of the other reviewers, I did get my syllabus for free when I made it out to the review, which was a high-yield, dynamic review like nothing I'd seen before. Great slides. Dynamic lectures. Great memory aids. A major recommend from me!
Rating:
Summary: EXCELLENT SYLLABUS! LOVED THE COURSE!
Review: Very thorough, concise, well-organized. Great for the internal medicine I.M. boards. While I didn't get my Q&A for free, like some of the other reviewers, I did get my syllabus for free when I made it out to the review, which was a high-yield, dynamic review like nothing I'd seen before. Great slides. Dynamic lectures. Great memory aids. A major recommend from me!
Rating:
Summary: EXCELLENT SYLLABUS! LOVED THE COURSE!
Review: Very thorough, concise, well-organized. Great for the internal medicine I.M. boards. While I didn't get my Q&A for free, like some of the other reviewers, I did get my syllabus for free when I made it out to the review, which was a high-yield, dynamic review like nothing I'd seen before. Great slides. Dynamic lectures. Great memory aids. A major recommend from me!
Rating: 
Summary: It helps greatly, but you'll hate yourself the morning after
Review: You would be foolish not to study this Syllabus before taking the ABIM certification or recertification exam. With that said, I can only half-heartedly recommend it. Why? For one, this book is identical, as far as I can tell to "Nail the Boards!". (However, when I called to order the Frontrunner's syllabus, the author--who personally answered the phone--assured me that they were quite different. Well, yeah, "Nail the Boards!" is $285 cheaper!) Dr. Mittman also talked me into needlessly spending $40 more on an HIV primer and an ABG review booklet-the texts of which are almost completely identical to chapters in this Syllabus. The other issue is that there is *a lot* of similarity with material in this book and the Boards (at least the 2003 recertification exam). So much so, that I think you'd have to wonder if he's sneaking out some of the questions.Keep in mind you have to sign an honesty pledge when you take the exam stating that you will not divulge its contents. Finally, the book's full of typos and definitely amateurish, without evidence of proofreading. To the author's credit, he does do a nice job of outlining important points; I did learn some new things. Compared to a competitor, the MedStudy program, this book covers about 80% of the same material, emphasizes what's really asked on the boards, and takes about a fifth as much time to read, and can be reread in a day or so. The companion question and answer book is useful. Be warned, though, the questions in that book are not at all like board exam questions, but their review does reinforce learning from the Syllabus. Yeah, this syllabus addresses a kinda anti-intellectual, mercenary mindset. But that's the Boards. There's enough sleaze to go around for all. The people who really should feel guilty are the 30 members of the "grandfathered" American Board of Internal Medicine, not one of whom has a time-limited IM certification and only just two of whom have bothered to electively recertify. Why the hell aren't those old farts, who trained in a more intellectually bankrupt era, much longer ago, when Boards were shorter and had higher pass rates, and who are more likely to be in cognitive decline in their advancing years, enforcing on themselves the very same rules that they have written for their better qualified descendants?
|
