How to choose a board review course as a resident

Residency is an exciting time for family physicians. It’s a time to put knowledge you learned in medical school into place in real practice settings and consider what kind of first career steps you want to take after becoming certified.

But before you become certified, there’s an important step: passing the board exam at the end of your residency. And while it might seem early, residents should begin to assess knowledge gaps from the very first year of residency. Preparing for the exam isn’t something that can be done hastily and at the last minute.

You can get a sense of what the exam questions will look like through sample questions from the American Board of Family Medicine and the AAFP. However, for many residents, one of the best ways to study for the ABFM board exam is through a dedicated board review course.

With multiple options, it can be difficult to choose the best board review course for you and your learning style. We’ll go over the benefits of a board review course, what makes a good board review course, tips to make the most out of any board review course purchase and other important exam tips for studying.

What are the benefits of a board review course?

One of the key benefits to board review courses is that they provide comprehensive content that is tailored to the exam. While self-study is an important skill for residents and throughout your journey as a family physician, the breadth of the board exam makes it difficult to prepare for everything on your own. Board review courses may include sample study schedules, tips on test-taking strategies or community forums or discussions.

Another important benefit to board review courses is that they can help you pinpoint where your gaps are. In residency, your time is at a premium. Brushing up on your weaker areas gets an outsized return on your time investment, as opposed to studying across a wide area of topics.

Finally, board review courses do a great job at providing detail critiques of your answers and showing why they were right or wrong. This is one of the limitations of doing only practice questions—if you answer a practice question about chronic kidney disease incorrectly and look up the answer, you may be able to answer that specific question correctly in the future. Board review courses can help direct you toward the primary sources, such as journal articles or guidelines, that can help you correctly answer similar kinds of questions in the actual exam.  

And for many, board review courses simply provide one extremely valuable resource: confidence. The board exam is stressful. Taking a prep course can both prepare you and extinguish many doubts you have about the test.  

At the most basic level, a high-quality board review course should adequately address all of the clinical topic areas listed in the blueprint of the certification exam. This way, residents can feel confident they have covered the full range of material on which they will be tested. A good board review course is also

• developed by board-certified family physicians with diverse clinical experiences,

• inclusive of evidence-based references and

• taught by experienced faculty

Residents may also wish to choose a review course that is taught specifically by residency faculty who understand how to prepare residents for the initial exam.

Don’t just consider what makes a good board review course in general—it’s important to consider what makes a good board review course for you. The best board courses cost money because of the thoroughness and thoughtfulness of their design. It’s therefore important to pick something that you’ll actually use. Before picking a board review course, reflect on your preferred learning style. Do you best learn by listening to lectures? Do you best learn by engaging in interactive sessions? Do you prefer a flexible online webinar or a more intensive in-person, classroom-style review course?

Many board review courses are offered in multiple formats. Courses also have different features, such as question banks, a simulated board exam interface, flashcards, study planners, access to a medical library and more. If those features are important to your learning style, take that into consideration.

What to avoid when studying for the board exam

Materials that are outdated—such as an old version of a board review course—are not worth your study time or money. Textbooks can quickly become outdated and aren’t able to be updated with the newest guidelines and information that you’ll be tested on. Be cautious when exploring older, cheaper options to save a few dollars. Resources that offer only passive learning strategies, such as simply reading or listening to content, are also not as effective as those that include active learning such as questions, self-testing or flashcards.

Additionally, it’s important to make sure you are selecting materials specific to the ABFM board exam. While other specialties have their own board exams and board review resources, they also include material that may not be present in the ABFM board exam. For instance, commercial self-study question banks that are useful for the United States Medical Licensing Exam Step 3 or the Comprehensive Osteopathic Medical Licensing Exam Level 3 are not as relevant when studying for family medicine certification exams. Their content is not specific to family medicine, and their question styles may be different from those on the certification exam.

One of the biggest mistakes that many residents make is focusing solely on free question banks to study for the board exam. Question banks are an excellent tool, but they should be used a way to test your knowledge or to identify knowledge gaps rather than as a method to acquire information.  

Other board exam tips for studying

One of the most powerful study strategies residents should deploy is to learn from your patients! When you encounter a new clinical scenario or a point-of-care question to which you do not know the answer, read up on it as soon as you can, using current, evidence-based resources.

Additionally, make sure to use your peers and faculty mentors in your studying. Consider finding a study partner or even forming a study group within your program, then schedule times to review materials and quiz each other. Faculty mentors can be particularly helpful once you have ABFM in-person training exam scores in hand; they can help you customize or augment your training plan.

There’s no easy way to prepare for the board exam because the board exam isn’t easy. But as long as you invest in resources that reflect your learning style, focus on family medicine certification exam content and take a strategic approach to addressing knowledge gaps, you’ll have laid a strong path toward passing your board exam and finally becoming the family physician you’ve dreamed of being.

Sarah Cole, DO, FAAFP has nearly 20 years of experience serving on the faculty at Mercy Hospital in St. Louis, Missouri. She became associate program director in 2011 and has worked as the residency program director since 2016.