How I studied for the ABA [anesthesia] critical care medicine board exam/certification3 min read

Today’s inane image of the day:

I took my anesthesia critical care medicine board examination on October 9, 2021 – a significant delay from my graduation from my fellowship in June 2020 because of pandemic restrictions. It was a different experience studying for this exam because I was working as an attending at that point and this board exam doesn’t have as “straightforward” of resources to use [e.g. BASIC/ADVANCED/ITE = TrueLearn + review book]. Also, it feels weird to have to study for yet another exam when you’re finally DONE with training.

Anyway, in the video above, I go over the format of the exam [200 questions, 4 hours… same formula as always], one big surprise I noticed about this exam, and the resources I *attempted* to use to study.

Some important documents directly from the ABA website:

Content outline: https://theaba.org/pdfs/CCM_Content_Outline.pdf
Blueprint: https://theaba.org/pdfs/CCM_Blueprint.pdf
Sample questions: https://theaba.org/pdfs/CCM_Questions.pdf

The resources I used [all question banks, essentially]:

Critical care medicine review 1000 questions and answers: https://amzn.to/3QCHdbB (~$100)
SCCM review – Self-Assessment Adult Multiprofessional Critical Care (227 questions) ($225-280) https://www.sccm.org/Education-Center/Educational-Programming/Multiprofessional-Critical-Care-Review/Multiprofessional-Critical-Care-Review-Adult/Multiprofessional-Critical-Care-Review-Adult-Reso
CHEST SEEK critical care medicine collection (470+ Questions) ($439-699)
https://www.chestnet.org/store/products/standard-products/apps/seek-library

In the video, I talk about a Google spreadsheet that I used to keep track of my study progress and to sort of motivate me. This is what it looked like [get ready to laugh out loud]:

So yeah… I didn’t keep this completely updated and obviously I scrambled in the last month leading up to the exam!

As I alluded to earlier, this felt like a weird exam to study for, but I found some questions and somehow got through it. I’m glad to be done with the board certification process!

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