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PANRE rant and review with Lange Q&A


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Hey everyone!

 

I am studying for my PANRE and am seriously annoyed with this process. I have taken weeks off work(thousands of $$), spent over a thousand dollars on a review course(CME resources) plus a couple hundred on books, time away from family etc. This is such BS. All my friends(veteran PA's in family med) who I've spoken to have said the PANRE is ridiculously difficult and no studying will help. One of them recently failed and was his 4th time taking it in his career with no issues in the past. As a result he lost his job and now has no income with 3 kids! WHAT IS THE POINT OF ALL OF THIS!?? I'm worried sick, can't sleep out of anxiousness, stopped working out because I feel I need to constantly study etc. I'm not sure why we put up with this? As far as I can tell we are the only medical profession that has to re-certify every 6 years. Furthermore, from what I can tell, the NCCPA is nothing more than a private entity that created testing standards and for some reason hospitals, insurance companies, and state regulating agencies latched on to their "credentials" as a requirement. Why? What am I missing? Why isn't AAPA getting involved and making this process less stressful? Why aren't they lobbying with state officials and hospitals so that we can practice without the "C?" I realize some states don't require a PA to be "certified," but every hospital, and insurance company does require it(not to mention the state I'm in). Needless to say I'm not renewing my AAPA membership. Why aren't we as a professional body standing up to the NCCPA? All the years of schooling and hard work we have invested are being threatened and dictated by some independently owned company? Am I the only one outraged by this stressful process? I should have become been a NP, they don't have to deal with this!

 

Ok sorry that's my rant.... Now my question

 

I have read the Comprehensive review for certification and recertif..... Now I'm onto the LANGE Q&A book. I'm currently working on the CD questions in blocks of 60. I've been scoring in the high 60%'s.. I feel these are terrible scores? For anyone that has taken the PANRE, do you recall how you did on these exam questions and how that correlated to your PANRE experience?I can't stand the thought of going through this process twice and want to pass first try so any words of advice are appreciated.Thanks

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Arizona Dave,

 

I feel your frustration. I'm not one of those "Fight the man" types, but to me, the NCCPA represents an entity that is too over-reaching in their control over our careers. I think that there needs to be some sort of quality control, but why do I have to pay some nameless, faceless computer based company a fee every year to electronically file my CME? I can do that myself at home with my file cabinet.

 

A while back I wrote a pretty lengthy post about my experience with the PANRE. I work in emergency medicine and I work a lot so I was confident going into the PANRE that I would do well because I'm exposed to a lot. But I'm never one to take a test and not be prepared, so that's what I did... I prepared. That being said, every single person that I work with that has taken the PANRE and followed my outline has done amazingly well. I've had strangers on this forum private message me and tell me about their successes.

 

There is no reason for you to stress out and lose sleep and not work out. Passing that test is an easily accomplished goal. to save you time from searching the forum, I'll cut and paste it here. And remember, for the PANRE, your knowledge has to be five miles wide, but only an inch deep. You gotta know a little bit about a lot of stuff.

 

After preparing for and taking the PANRE recently I decided that I would throw in my two cents for those that are about the take the PANCE for the first time and for those taking the PANRE and don’t have any idea how to prepare. There is a lot of really good information on this forum, but unfortunately, and in like most forums and chats, some people are not very constructive with their posts or criticism. I would suggest that you read this and take it for what it’s worth. If it helps you, that’s great. If you are some kind of PA super genius and think you know everything there is to know about the process, skip it and keep you comments to yourself. Remember, just trying to help is all. And if you’re a student and you have never taken the PANCE, keep your limited experience with the profession and examination to a small amount. People come here for answers and not to read a bunch of garbage.

 

Hopefully your program has prepared you adequately to sit for the PANCE and be successful. No matter how well you think your program did at preparing you for the examination, you might not be as clever as you think you are. You should forget all the folk tales and horror stories that you have heard about the exam. The people that made it are not trying to fail you or get you to fail on your own. They want to test your fund of general knowledge. If you walk into the exam without preparing for that specific exam, you could fail.

 

There is going to be some natural and healthy anxiety about taking that test. Everybody has had it before. You might feel like you didn’t prepare for the test. I have reviewed just about every single test prep medium you can imagine and I will share with you my thoughts about what is effective and what isn’t worth your money. The test used to be just memorization of facts, but now they want you to do that and be able to do some critical thinking. Proper preparation will take you a long way with both.

 

Let me say that I have yet to come across a flash card system or product that is effective or worth the money. This is the worst culprit out there:

If you want to throw your money away, I’ll give you my routing number and just give it to me. Mo-media makes worthless products that if you rely on, will set you up for monumental failure. Not worth the paper that they are printed on so don’t get sucked in. If you want to use flashcards, which I do, make your own. They are effective to memorize things that you aren’t 100% sure on. But be careful, there comes a point when those cards become more overwhelming than helpful. You definitely don’t want to make a stack of cards 500 deep and then try to memorize them. DO NOT BUY ANYTHING FROM MORRISON MEDIA!!!!

 

Some people buy every single book, every review CD and every single resource they can get their hands on. What you need to do is find a few forms of education, and USE them. You might get to a point, like some of my colleagues, where you think that you have to study every single little book out there to pass and you simply will not have enough time for that. Research some books and CDs and whatever and stick with them. They are all basically the same information and they all will provide adequate resources.

 

Additionally, if you’re a student, now is the time to start buying prep books on amazon. Most of them are the same. They come with CDs and the book. Pick one that’s highly reviewed and pick it up. As a student, look at a chapter every month or so. It helps to prepare you for the kinds of questions that you might even see in your program.

 

The single greatest resource available to you is CME resources. Sometimes referenced as the Chicago course. Now I have used the Emory prep course as well. It comes on a DVD and you can download the info to your computer or ipod and listen to it in your car. It sounds like a fantastic idea, but there are some drawbacks. Some of the audio plain sucks. The instructors actually miss some of the required subjects from the NCCPA blueprint. And they don’t use a lot of buzzwords in their presentations. I drive an hour each way to work and I thought it would be great to have that resource. After a week I went back to listening to my satellite radio. The good thing about the Emory course is that it comes with a post test. Fill it out and mail it back to them and they will send you a certificate that’s good for some CAT I CME.

 

CME resources on the other hand, it’s fantastic. They put on a fantastic lecture series. It is grueling and intense. You’re looking at some long days. If you haven’t been, you need to go before you take the PANCE. At the end of each day they give you a test that should take you two hours to finish. They grade them the next day and on Friday they give you a grade report that tells you pretty much how well you should do on the PANCE. My score the first time around was within ten points so it’s pretty accurate. The first time that I attended I was almost done with school and my opinion is that you are never smarter than you are the day after you leave school. After that, you begin to “leak” knowledge. So schedule yourself for CME resources as soon as you can. They are all over the place. And the best part of it is that they painstakingly follow the NCCPA blueprint and give you a binder filled with the lectures from each block. It’s an amazing reference. For example, a friend of mine who took the PANRE recently hadn’t attended a CME Resources class in six years, but he studied his old binder and had no trouble. I really cannot say enough good things about that program. Just google cme resources and find the one that’s closest to you. And for those that already have the C, go to it anyway. I think it’s around 40 CME. If you’re a specialty guy like I am, the review will help you immensely.

 

Next reference is Physician Assistant Board Review: Expert Consult - Online and Print (Expert Consult Title: Online + Print) [Paperback] by James Van Rhee. Everybody has a favorite book and will tell you why they thought that book was the best. And everybody will ***** and moan about a book needing reviews and revisions and having mistakes and blah, blah, blah. If you are short on time, I mean two weeks away from testing and you feel lost and don’t know where to go to study, just buy the latest edition of this book. You can read through the entire thing in about a day. And I mean read it cover to cover in a day. So make some sacrifices at home and read through it seven or eight times, take some notes and go pass your test. People will state that the knowledge is too basic, I disagree. I have another colleague who is specializing in pathology. This dude wouldn’t know a heart murmur from a seizure. In one week of study with this particular book (the older version) he was out of the PANRE in 2 hours and not only did he pass, he passed well. It’s a great reference. I think it’s better than the AAPA books and also better than the Appleton and Lange books that people have said are the gold standard. Go to Amazon and buy this book. Use it. Don’t like it or think it sucks, sell it on Amazon.

 

 

 

I will use it on my next PANRE

 

The last reference that I think is invaluable is the latest edition of datachem, PA-C prep. I used this when I was student and this is the only testing program I used before the PANRE I just took. Tons of questions, cover every topic, and if you do well on the self tests, you will do well in the PANRE. It’s adequate for test prep for the PANCE as well. And if you don’t pass after suing their product, they will give you your money back.

 

This is how I prepared for the last PANRE I took, and I suspect that this will work well for the PANCE.

 

I went to the CME resources lecture. I sat up front, got a good seat (those things are packed and usually fill up fast) and I really paid attention. I really took notes and listened to these lecturers. When the lectures were over for that day, I went back to my room, took the self test and then went out and got something to eat. I went back to the hotel, opened the binder and reviewed that days lectures and read ahead for the upcoming day. This might seem like it’s intense and way too much work, but keep in mind, it’s only one week. If you study really hard that one week, you can probably test out as soon as possible. If you don’t want to do that, you can do what I did.

 

I took my CME resources binder and I read it again cover to cover. I made flashcards of the buzzwords and things that I didn’t know by heart. Then I reviewed the exams that they gave us again. I put that binder away after that. Then I pulled out the green book by Van Rhee and read it cover to cover and highlighted the things that I didn’t know by heart. I spent a few hours going through the DataChem PA-C Prep disc and revisited things that I wasn’t 100% comfortable with. I reviewed my flashcards and notes. Finally, I went back through, cover to cover, the green book by Van Rhee and was ready to go. I didn’t kill myself studying. I didn’t lose sleep over the exam. I started preparing a few weeks in advance. But I do work in emergency medicine and I took the generalist PANRE. If you work in primary care or EM, you should be fine as you see enough common primary care complaints.

 

You can take the practice tests on the NCCPA website. They offer two for the PANRE and one for the PANCE. But don’t let this fool you. It can do so in several ways. One is that if there is only two ID questions on that version of the practice test and you miss one, the results will make you think you’re an ID idiot. On the other hand, if you get both of those questions correct, you might think that you’re a super genius and stop studying those subjects. For example, I totally bombed heme and EENT on both practice tests, but on my latest PANRE I got 100% of the questions right in both of those categories. Just be aware.

 

There are no curveballs. Just prep a little before and you will be fine. Remember, this is my experience and yours might be different, but the methods that I used, they are pretty solid and they worked like a champ. When I left the testing center I had no doubts at all that I had passed.

 

 

 

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  • 4 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

Thanks for the info Arizona Dave. I alreay have most of these books and took the "Chicago Review Course" w my last recert 6 years ago (I still have my binder as well). I will review it as suggested, as well as rereading the review books and taking their practice tests. I will also take the NCCPAs practice tests. I did all of these things for my recert six years ago and passed on the first try. My concern is less about the review process and more about the grading/scoring of our tests through the testing center. I am fearful after reading these online horror stories of fail notifications, only to be followed up by pass notifications. Does anyone out there know if any of these issues have been resolved? I've read about some getting reimbursed for their expenses, but like everyone else....I DONT want reimbursement, I want my test scored correctly!! I was not worried before I read all these terrible accounts. I hope someone out there has updated knowledge in this area and can shead some light on what has gone wrong with our professional testing. Please relieve my stress about this!!! Taking my test for the third time (passed 1 st try on all so far) on April 25! Yikes! I'm worried now!!

Please excuse any typos.

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Thanks for the info Arizona Dave. I alreay have most of these books and took the "Chicago Review Course" w my last recert 6 years ago (I still have my binder as well). I will review it as suggested, as well as rereading the review books and taking their practice tests. I will also take the NCCPAs practice tests. I did all of these things for my recert six years ago and passed on the first try. My concern is less about the review process and more about the grading/scoring of our tests through the testing center. I am fearful after reading these online horror stories of fail notifications, only to be followed up by pass notifications. Does anyone out there know if any of these issues have been resolved? I've read about some getting reimbursed for their expenses, but like everyone else....I DONT want reimbursement, I want my test scored correctly!! I was not worried before I read all these terrible accounts. I hope someone out there has updated knowledge in this area and can shead some light on what has gone wrong with our professional testing. Please relieve my stress about this!!! Taking my test for the third time (passed 1 st try on all so far) on April 25! Yikes! I'm worried now!!

Please excuse any typos.

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  • 3 weeks later...

thx for the input doubledown10,

 

Do you only recommend the 5 day course?

Is the 3 day course too short?

 

I love VanRhee! used it to pass the PANCE!

Now it's my 1st PANRE & I want to take a review course, because it will make me study!

 

Thx for your input,

Velvet

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thx for the input doubledown10,

 

Do you only recommend the 5 day course?

Is the 3 day course too short?

 

I love VanRhee! used it to pass the PANCE!

Now it's my 1st PANRE & I want to take a review course, because it will make me study!

 

Thx for your input,

Velvet

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  • 1 month later...

I recently failed my PANRE and cannot understand why. I studied hard for 10 weeks, took the CME Resources 5 day "Chicago Review Course" and reviewed endless questions. The past online stories of initial fail notifications followed up with pass notifications is very disturbing. I too would like to know if any of the past PANRE scoring issue have truly been resolved. At this time I do not trust that the NCCPA has resolved these scoring issue. I left this most recent PANRE feeling OK while the last time I left my PANRE 6 yrs ago (and after my initial PANCE 12 yrs ago), I left feeling like I failed but passed with a large margin.

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High 60's are pretty good scores on those CD's. This IS a difficult exam, mainly because it covers EVERY THING -- and no one can know everything.

I do not know why we put up with it -- we are a hundred thousand strong now -- but it is what it is.

How did you do on the tests at our review course? When are you taking your exam? I'm glad to help, but calming down is the first thing you need to do. Calm and cool and keep your head in the game ---- jackie kazik from CME resouces

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