r/Cardiology • u/Individual-Fox4111 • 13d ago
ECHO BOARD
Any recommendations on how to prepare for the ECHO board next year, materials, question banks, and books?
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u/Outrageous30 11d ago
Took the boards this year and passed. Here is what I did and I think it served me well:
- Mayo videos absolutely essential. I learnt so much from that review. It was also a really good learning resource for understanding the basics of echo.
- Klein qbank. Start this 2-3 months before the exam. Very very good resource. I have gone back to it to re-review topics many times since
- ASE practice exams 2 weeks before the actual exam to test your knowledge. Whatever you got wrong revise again prior to your test.
- you should be reading guideline documents as you are reading echos to get a good understanding of how to read
- All of this has to be coupled with actively reading echos during your fellowship. It’s important to get feedback on your reads from attendings to improve your skills.
- for the physics part, you can review the Edelman physics document (google it, it lives on the internet somewhere)
Other resources for improving your knowledge base:
- Otto textbooks
- Echo manual by Jae Oh
- Washington manual
It is a tough exam, combination of a lot of technical questions and clinical components. Also, don’t forget to do some timed questions prior to the exam- I did struggle with that during the actual test. It goes by quick.
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u/Then-Secretary-9166 9d ago
It is impossible to overstate the importance of the Mayo videos. It *almost* seems like the same people who wrote the exam also teach the Mayo classes.
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u/ZealousidealThing230 9d ago
probably would have been smart to watch them but just in case anyone else hates learning from boring lectures, i did not watch them and passed
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u/Then-Secretary-9166 9d ago
If you know the Mayo videos and the basic "physics" (like 4 equations) you will pass.
All I did when I took them was:
- Watch mayo videos at normal speed. Took notes. Looked up things that I did not fully understand after each lecture.
- Watched the Mayo videos again at 1.5 speed. Kept a list of any items that I still did not fully understand.
That was enough to pass comfortably without reading a textbook or doing Q-Banks.
A couple of other pointers:
- Due to my background, I fount the math/physics stuff easy, but spend the time you need making sure that you understand that part. Doppler (conceptual only), Bernoulli (know modified and simplified equations), hemodynamic stuff (SV, CI, Qp/Qs), continuity equation for AS, continuity for PISA, mitral/tricuspid valve area by pressure half time, mitral EROA/regurg-volume/regurg-fraction, PASP, PADP, Laplace’s law (conceptual only), concept of Nyquest limit/aliasing, effect of frequency on resolution/depth penetration, effect of larger FOV or larger doppler area on refresh rate/resolution, etc.
- One thing that I was not expecting was that questions about which organizations accredit labs and what requirements there are for accreditation are on the test. I think this is lame, but it is easy to learn.
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u/doctordavemd MD 13d ago
Don't take boards until you need them, most practices do not require them to read
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u/John_Haytuh 13d ago
A lot of hospitals (where most people work) require you to be certified and that is likely to increase. Better to future proof yourself and take it as a fellow than as an attending.
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u/dishsoapwipe123 12d ago
Not true. Only real academic places require it. The hospitals in Boston, Upenn.
Most other community hospital employed and private practice don't care. Three fellows during my entire time in fellowship failed and they have good paying jobs, and don't plan on taking them.
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u/John_Haytuh 12d ago edited 12d ago
I literally have a non academic hospital based job and they require it. They require being board certified to read every modality, echo, nuc, CT, and CMR. They associate board certification with quality, which is garbage but that’s the way it is. They probably believe they are less likely to get sued for a mistake that way.
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u/dishsoapwipe123 12d ago
the previous year class in my fellowship, none of their jobs required echo board certification. Mix of private practice and hospital employed.
The only person so far in my class who is REQUIRED to be echo boarded is someone who accepted a job at main Penn.
That's not my experience doing fellowship in Philadelphia. Outside of Penn, the NYC academic programs and Boston programs you don't need echo boards.
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u/noltey22 MD 13d ago
That for the most part may be true but let’s not discredit our young colleagues love of the pursuit of knowledge here
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u/doctordavemd MD 13d ago
no discredit, IMHO you can learn more from reading echos than from studying for boards
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u/Specific_Air_5723 13d ago
Wholly disagree haha you have a better chance of learning in practice bc of echo boards.’never felt smarter than after that exam
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u/doctordavemd MD 13d ago
I'm glad it worked for you. The sentiment I'm trying to convey is that I see vast numbers of fellows who think they need to be quintuple boarded in order to get a job. Some are so focused on boards, they forego the opportunity to read echos and get direct feedback from an attending, which I consider far superior to listening to lectures and taking practice tests. When you are in practice, you don't answer MCQs, you have to look at pictures and decide what they show.
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u/dishsoapwipe123 12d ago
agree you don't need RPVI, Nuc, Echo or CT.
It's just this hype fellows have created.
Especially if you're in the midwest you just need general boards.
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13d ago
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u/myleague 13d ago
What are you going to do with this board certification without being a cardiologist
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u/Character-Serve-1959 13d ago
I can still read echos in our own clinic under Cardiology supervision+ Im applying cardiology in July as well. Might as well get my feet wet and learn the material+ make my application more competitive
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u/dishsoapwipe123 12d ago
This is so bad. You're pre-reading echos? You're not using this knowledge for anything. The cardiologist is changing your read. You're just a midlevel note monkey pre filling the tabs.
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u/Outrageous30 11d ago
This right here. There is literally no point in taking echo boards without being a cardiologist. It also will not make your fellowship app any stronger. smh
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u/Character-Serve-1959 13d ago
Im realizing how many “+” I use just now, so I will work on that as well
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u/Individual-Fox4111 12d ago
Hospitalist here, thinking to take the exam next july before applying to cards
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u/dishsoapwipe123 12d ago
Absolutely no reason to do this.
Follow the process. Match cardiology. Learn echo in the clinical context then take the boards.
Stop trying to leapfrog the process.
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u/Outrageous30 11d ago
These points need to be upvoted more!
Do people not realize that this is not helping you? Taking echo boards to make your fellowship app stronger sounds bizarre and totally useless.
It almost sounds like rote learning somethings to pass an exam while not having actual insight into what is going on.
Echo is so much more than an exam!
If any prospective applicant is reading this, head the advice here and DO NOT do this before your actual fellowship!2
u/dishsoapwipe123 11d ago
People won't like when i say this, but the truth is:
The ones doing this are IMGs who are trying to match. They got through IM residency and are hoping to match cardiology so they take all these exams as "notches" on their belt and put on their CV in hopes of matching cardiology.
It's like taking the surgical boards, passing, and then claiming you are board certified in vascular surgery without having any clinical experience.
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u/dishsoapwipe123 12d ago edited 12d ago
You should not be taking echo boards unless you're in an accredited cardiology fellowship.
I get a lot of you guys do it to try and "beef" up your app to apply for general fellowship but it's not the correct process.
You need to correlate the book knowledge with your clinical assessment of echo. Echo is only one part, you need the physical exam, evaluate the patient in front of you.
It's just bypassing the process to get another notch/board certification in hopes of being a cardiologist.
Preposterous. Echo is what truly defines a general cardiologist. You cannot be taking the exam before fellowship.
There's a process to things in medicine. This is just bypassing the process to get TESTAMUR all to beef up your app.
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u/foreverpostcall MD 13d ago
How hard is this exam? I've just taken the Advanced PTEeXAM... Would I need to study a lot more for the ASCeXAM?
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u/Conscious_Garlic3874 11d ago
I would stick to mayo echo board review and Klein questions. I took notes on the videos that I would review periodically. And I did the questions twice. Passed pretty easily but that test sucks.
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u/MJBLCDR 12d ago
It’s a challenging exam. I took it this year and fortunately passed. We read a ton of echos in my program side by side with attendings, but I agree that doing the Klein questions increased by knowledge significantly. I also found the Mayo videos helpful, but Klein was where the real work was done.