Just spent the weekend taking my Oral Boards. That was an interesting experience.....
It was in Chicago and so, being a newlywed and in love, I thought I would fly the Biscuit out to stay with me. We'd get in a day early, and after I did a little studying in the mornings we could go out on the town and see some museums, try to catch a baseball game, maybe see a play. You know, enjoy the city in Spring. Unfortunately, the hotel was in (way) outer Chicago--we spent our non-studying hours (for the Biscuit, all of her hours) trapped in the claustrophobic hotel room or out in the rain exploring....well, not much. I suppose it's like the airport hotels next to LAX...only without the dazzling sunshine and Nude Nude Nude review.
No one likes the Oral Boards, but I for one am glad they exist. More than anything they test a doctor's ability to perform under pressure. Simple breadth and depth of knowledge can be assessed more or less reliably with a scantron sheet and an eight hour exam, but the abiliy to perform under pressure is the essence of my specialty and no written test can evaluate that. I am sure there are people who believe that written tests are very stressful--those people are thinking of stress/pressure/performance anxiety on a different scale than I am. They need to have a young person seizing in their arms and choking to death on his tongue to properly appreciate the relative absence of anxiety that comes with (any) multiple choice test.
But the Orals is a little more unnerving; any doc who can't handle that pressure should not be in an ER. Yes, yes--the Orals can't perfectly replicate the terror of a delicate case gone bad, but with the suits, and the grim faces, and the time constraint, and the absence of any feedback, and the possibility of (seriously) losing one's job if one fails....the anxiety level is definitely ratcheted up a few notches. The basic format is that a candidate doc walks into a hotel room, sits down at a table across from the examiner, and receives as heet of paper with a patient's name and chief complaint and vitals. Then the examinee talks his way through the case and the examineer plays all the roles of patient, family, nurse, radiology tech, laboratory, consultants, etc. The cases were bread-and-butter, the format was designed to foster rapid success, and still I found myself in a few awkward situations. I think I did well and, even with the retrospectoscope at maximum magnification, can't think of any major blunders. But still--you never quite know what they are looking for in terms of their Critical Actions and there is a little of the Guess What I'm Thinking game to it.
Most specialities don't have oral boards. But, as I said, I'm glad mine does--I'lll be dissapointed is they do away with it.
Oh--saw "United 93". Fantastic and very moving. I recommend it highly!
U-561
