Gorlum
05-20-2007, 07:21 PM
Am a bit late - all current residents 've taken it already. Nevertheless, it might be useful for folks who'll start patho- this July.
RISE takes place once a year, usually in April-May. Patho- residents all around the country take it during 10-11 days of examination period. (This year it was April 29-May 11). If you are a first year, your aim is to do not worse than:
-PGY-1 in your program
-PGY-1 in other programs
if you are a second + year, you have to show the improvement in comparison with previous results.
You'd better be good otherwise a PD will be yelling at you for 5 good minutes (as our second-years recall). I havent faced my 5 minutes of glory yet cause the results will be announced in June only.
Don't bother about registration and payment - a program will do everything for you, and you'll be given an ID, a password and a web-link.
Format:
First block: 132 questions in anatomical pathology (including Cytology and Forensic);
Second block: 172 questions in clinical pathology (blood banking, molecular biology, chemistry, micro, hem);
Third block: 48 questions in special studies (flow, lab management, genetics, informatics and some random weird questions).
I don't remember how much time is given, but I finished first part 1 hr earlier, second part 1.5 hrs earlier and third part in 20 min:).
You cannot take brakes in the middle of the block! In the second part you have to go through all 172 q-s... Good news - you can split the exam in 3 days (at least in our program). I took all in once.
More detailed about each part.
First block (AP).
It starts with cytology and if you haven't done a rotation or don't have regular cytology seminars, don’t even bother to read questions and contemplate pictures - just click whatever answer. The worst part of cytology was pap-smears. They give you a picture and several choices: "this smear more likely belongs to...". Anyway, cyto- wasn't that annoying but I'd better stop sleeping on weekly cytology seminars:)).
Surgical pathology and autopsies – the easiest part of the exam; I had only SP and autopsies this year, and it was helpful.
Forensic – nothing horrible: cause and manner of death, gun-shot and stab wounds… the only one strange q-n was about AC/DC (and I don’t mean the band:)). Also, you have to know basic toxicology with metabolites. We have good forensic seminars every second month so this part was ok too.
Second block (CP).
A nightmare I couldn’t imagine… Ye-ye, we have weekly blood banking lectures and weekly CP rounds but most of the time am having postprandial nap:). Transfusion medicine was more or less fine – at least I understood questions:). In micro section they gave us bugs and fungi I’ve never heard about… And the was a q-n about the choice of antibiotics – like am gonna treat somebody in real life:)). Hem: peripheral smears with at least ten CD something + and 10 CD something –, and then they ask about translocation… I stopped reading questions at that point… I was shocked then they asked me to calculate a glomerular filtration rate… I was close to tears when I saw “prevalence and positive predictive value” – “sadistics” appeared to be a part of clinical chemistry…. Molecular biology reminded me of the worst part of step 1 which I flunked years ago – again, I didn’t have a clue…
Special studies
Genetics was not bad: HLA and antibodies in different diseases, a couple of simple karyotypes… Electrophoresis was really easy (I did one rotation already). Flow cytometry – why it’s given separately from hem? I don’t know. On the other hand, who cares? I cannot read it anyway:). Lab management: we showed some stuff afterwards to a person who deals with it in our core lab:). She said she’d never seen such stupid q-s in her life:). And we were asked the most frequent billing code!!! Who needs it, if it’s generated by Co-path automatically after logging a specimen in?? I was very surprised then they asked about data encryption… Why do we need it? Ok, at least I got one answer right cause I know it. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw a q-n about Maslow pyramid – it’s psychology, not pathology!! Of course, both start with “P”….
Conclusion: be ready to fail either part depending on your rotations. You cannot prepare to the exam unless you have last year q-s. If you don’t know, pick up any answer – you cannot finish the exam with unanswered questions. RISE shouldn’t have any impact on your fellowship, but why does a PD get our scores and keeps them in our records?:)
Good luck to everybody… the fun never ends:).
RISE takes place once a year, usually in April-May. Patho- residents all around the country take it during 10-11 days of examination period. (This year it was April 29-May 11). If you are a first year, your aim is to do not worse than:
-PGY-1 in your program
-PGY-1 in other programs
if you are a second + year, you have to show the improvement in comparison with previous results.
You'd better be good otherwise a PD will be yelling at you for 5 good minutes (as our second-years recall). I havent faced my 5 minutes of glory yet cause the results will be announced in June only.
Don't bother about registration and payment - a program will do everything for you, and you'll be given an ID, a password and a web-link.
Format:
First block: 132 questions in anatomical pathology (including Cytology and Forensic);
Second block: 172 questions in clinical pathology (blood banking, molecular biology, chemistry, micro, hem);
Third block: 48 questions in special studies (flow, lab management, genetics, informatics and some random weird questions).
I don't remember how much time is given, but I finished first part 1 hr earlier, second part 1.5 hrs earlier and third part in 20 min:).
You cannot take brakes in the middle of the block! In the second part you have to go through all 172 q-s... Good news - you can split the exam in 3 days (at least in our program). I took all in once.
More detailed about each part.
First block (AP).
It starts with cytology and if you haven't done a rotation or don't have regular cytology seminars, don’t even bother to read questions and contemplate pictures - just click whatever answer. The worst part of cytology was pap-smears. They give you a picture and several choices: "this smear more likely belongs to...". Anyway, cyto- wasn't that annoying but I'd better stop sleeping on weekly cytology seminars:)).
Surgical pathology and autopsies – the easiest part of the exam; I had only SP and autopsies this year, and it was helpful.
Forensic – nothing horrible: cause and manner of death, gun-shot and stab wounds… the only one strange q-n was about AC/DC (and I don’t mean the band:)). Also, you have to know basic toxicology with metabolites. We have good forensic seminars every second month so this part was ok too.
Second block (CP).
A nightmare I couldn’t imagine… Ye-ye, we have weekly blood banking lectures and weekly CP rounds but most of the time am having postprandial nap:). Transfusion medicine was more or less fine – at least I understood questions:). In micro section they gave us bugs and fungi I’ve never heard about… And the was a q-n about the choice of antibiotics – like am gonna treat somebody in real life:)). Hem: peripheral smears with at least ten CD something + and 10 CD something –, and then they ask about translocation… I stopped reading questions at that point… I was shocked then they asked me to calculate a glomerular filtration rate… I was close to tears when I saw “prevalence and positive predictive value” – “sadistics” appeared to be a part of clinical chemistry…. Molecular biology reminded me of the worst part of step 1 which I flunked years ago – again, I didn’t have a clue…
Special studies
Genetics was not bad: HLA and antibodies in different diseases, a couple of simple karyotypes… Electrophoresis was really easy (I did one rotation already). Flow cytometry – why it’s given separately from hem? I don’t know. On the other hand, who cares? I cannot read it anyway:). Lab management: we showed some stuff afterwards to a person who deals with it in our core lab:). She said she’d never seen such stupid q-s in her life:). And we were asked the most frequent billing code!!! Who needs it, if it’s generated by Co-path automatically after logging a specimen in?? I was very surprised then they asked about data encryption… Why do we need it? Ok, at least I got one answer right cause I know it. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw a q-n about Maslow pyramid – it’s psychology, not pathology!! Of course, both start with “P”….
Conclusion: be ready to fail either part depending on your rotations. You cannot prepare to the exam unless you have last year q-s. If you don’t know, pick up any answer – you cannot finish the exam with unanswered questions. RISE shouldn’t have any impact on your fellowship, but why does a PD get our scores and keeps them in our records?:)
Good luck to everybody… the fun never ends:).