PANCE Prep Plan

PANCE Prep Plan

As I finish up my 8th rotation, and prepare to start my 9th and final rotation in January, I plan to take to take the PANCE exam 6 weeks after finishing my final rotation in March.

According to my EOC feedback report, the areas in which I performed particularly well (in order from highest score to lowest) include Pulmonology, Neurology, Hematology, and Endocrinology. The only sections in which I scored lower than the national average were Psychiatry, Infectious Diseases, and Dermatology. The other topics, including the high-yielding ones such as cardiology and GI, I performed relatively well in and scored above the national average. These results are actually pretty consistent with those of my most recent PACKRAT, demonstrating my strengths in high-yielding, however also demonstrating my need to strengthen my knowledge in some of the lower-yielding topics.

My plan is to spend the first two weeks of my studying focusing solely on the topics that I have not performed as well on, specifically in order of higher-yielding to lower-yielding topics. I will therefore begin focusing on Psychiatry, then Dermatology, then Infectious Diseases. For each topic, I will review basics concepts and diseases in PANCE Prep Pearls and using SmartyPance (which I find super helpful). Before moving on to each consecutive topic I will do practice questions on Rosh Review for each topic, and make sure to flag the questions that I answered incorrectly OR guessed on. I will then move on to the more high-yielding topics that although I scored higher than the national average, there’s still lots of room for improvement. These topics I will review in order of most high-yielding to least. For instance, I will focus on Cardiology, then GI, then Orthopedics, then HEENT, then OBGYN, and finally Urology. Again, I will review each topic separately and do practice questions on each before moving on to the next. Lastly I will review the topics I did particularly well in (in order from highest to lowest yielding): Pulmonology, Neurology, Endocrinology and Hematology. For these topics I will skim through PANCE Prep Pearls to search for my weakest sub-topics within each topic and focus on those diseases, and then do practice questions on each topic as a whole. While studying I will take 30 minute breaks every 2 hours, because incorporating breaks is the best way I study. While this may mean getting less done in a day, it will help make my studying more productive. In order to be sure that I do get to everything I need to before the test, I will make sure to wake up early (around 8am) and start my studying during the 3 week break I have before my last rotation.

After my studying, I will move on to the review portion of my prep. This will include retesting myself on all of the Rosh questions that I had originally flagged. I will then proceed to take full-length practice PANCE exams. For the first exam, I will take a timed test, then review all the answers I got wrong, and then retake the same test. I will then re-review some of the questions I flagged and topics I had difficulty with before proceeding to the next practice exam. I will then to the same with the next practice test I take, and so on. I plan to take 4 practice exams – timed.

After taking 3 exams and spending a few days reviewing after each one, I will then re-review (simply with practice questions on Rosh/SmartyPance) the highest-yielding topics: Cardiology, Pulmonology, GI and Ortho.

 MondayTuesdayWednesdayThursdayFridaySaturdaySunday
Week 1PsychiatryDermatologyInfectious DiseasesCardiologyGIOrthoHEENT
Week 2OBGYNUrologyREVIEWPulmonologyNeuroEndoHeme
Week 3BREAKREVIEWREVIEWREVIEWPRACTICE TEST 1REVIEWREVIEW
Week 4PRACTICE TEST 2REVIEWREVIEWREVIEWPRACTICE TEST 3REVIEWREVIEW
Week 5CARDIOCARDIOPULMPULMGIGIORTHO
Week 6ORTHOBREAKPractice Exam 4 – timedREVIEWREVIEWRESTREVIEW
Week 7Take the exam!