I looked through the performance reports of 3 comprehensive exams taken this year. Below I’ve listed the organ systems that performed strongly and weakly in. If I scored below the national average, I put the organ system under ‘weakness’. If above national average, I considered that a strong category.

 

IM EOR (March 2022): Weak – hematology

PACKRAT (Sept 2022): Strong – cardio, HEENT, GI, hematology, neuro, ortho/rheum, psych, pulm, uro/renal

Weak – derm, endocrine, ID, OB/GYN

EOC (Nov 2022): Strong – cardio, GI, ID, neuro, pulm, uro/renal

Weak – derm, endocrine, HEENT, HEMATOLOGY, Ob/Gyn (but improved since packrat because I had my Ob/Gyn rotation), ortho/rheum, psych

 

I remember being advised to study our weaker subjects first when preparing for the PANCE. I know hematology to personally be a weak area for me so I decided I would focus on that first. I also saw that dermatology, endocrinology, and Ob/Gyn were consistently weak areas for me in the most recent exams, so I added those to be studied next. Followed by these subjects I went from weakest to strongest subjects. As you can see in the calendar below, I specified some conditions of each organ system that I would focus studying on, and this was based on the NCCPA PANCE blueprint; for example, this is what was listed under hematology:

I divided these topics among 3 days as seen in the calendar below. Then I did similarly with the other organ systems. By writing down which disorders I will focus on that day, I feel this will give me structure and hold me accountable to sticking to this schedule.

I am taking the PANCE on January 26^th. This gives me roughly 6 weeks to prepare. I plan to spend 5-6 days a week studying. I will spend about 4 hours a day reviewing the topics I’ve assigned myself for that day (see calendar below). Then I will take a 60 minute exam with 60 questions just on that organ system. After the exam, I will use another hour to review the questions I had difficulty with, the explanations for each question, and some additional outside research to review anything that I am still unclear about. For reviewing/studying plan to use resources like PPP, osmosis, UpToDate, and my didactic notes. For practice questions I will use Kaplan, Rosh Review, and Exam Master. I plan to take a practice PANCE a few days before to mentally prepare myself for the long exam on the 26th.