PANCE Prep Plan

When thinking about how to best prepare myself for the PANCE, I wanted to maximize the resources available to me to pinpoint my weakest areas that would be most appropriate for me to focus on most. I am scheduled to take the PANCE the second week of January which gives me around a month for focused studying for the PANCE. We also have an in-school review course scheduled the week of December 15th. I also plan to study on my own at home that week, but will understand if I am not able to complete all of the material I wrote and will adjust my weekend study schedule accordingly if I find it necessary. I completed many of my general rotations toward the beginning of my clinical year and have continued to brush up on these topics as they have come up throughout my remaining EORs. 

I plan to devote about 8-10 hours per day for studying, with some likely ending up closer to 8 and others upwards of 10 hours. To create my schedule as seen below, I took a look at the assessments we received after the EORs as well as after the PACKRAT. I noticed that my areas of weakness were primarily cardiology and pulmonology. I chose to focus on these during separate weeks toward the beginning of my studying. I thought that this would allow me to focus on each as appropriate and incorporated various reviews for these topics throughout my schedule. I did notice that GI, Derm and Neurology have been areas of strongpoints for me. However, as these are all impotant topics I wanted to devote a decent amount of time to each of these. I am currently in my OBGYN rotation so I plan to be studying that during the first week of December as I plan for the EOR. I hope to study for this sufficiently so that I will feel confident in this area and will come back to it during the second half of my month of studying. As outlined in my schedule below, I utilized the information I was able to find on Clinical Component and the PAEA website to understand my strengths and weaknesses in various subjects and chose to apportion various amounts of time toward those subjects that the statistics suggested would benefit the most from studying. 

There are many resources available that I plan to utilize while studying for the PANCE. Throughout my didactic and clinical years I hae been using ROSH questions and find that these questions have been very helpful in regards to learning information and doing well on the exams. I plan to continue using this platform to test my knowledge throughout my studying. While I used UWorld occasionally during the clinical year, I plan to use it more consistently when studying for the PANCE. I have heard that these questions most similarly reflect the types of questions on the PANCE and plan to make use of the questions available through this resource. I was introduced to the Cram the PANCE podcast early in my didactic year and benefitted greatly from the way in which information is taught and reviewed. I plan to relisten to these podcasts to cement the learning I am doing daily. As I note in the schedule included, I plan to read through PANCE Prep Pearls throughout my month of studying as well. I have used this resource intermittently throughout my didactic and clinical year and believe that it would help reinforce the topics and provide me with a good opportunity for concise reivew of critical topics.

Below is a tentative schedule that I created for myself. As I mentioned, it is possible I will alter the schedule for certain days slightly depending on how well I feel I am following the schedule and whether I find that I need more time for certain topics. I also plan to complete at least 60 practice questions per day, as well as set aside a 5-hour window to complete a full exam around halfway through my studying period.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Skip to toolbar