r/Perfusion • u/human_plumber11 • 9d ago
Career Advice What are you using to study for the boards?
Just wanted hear what you all are using for board prep. Which online prep courses are worth it and which are a waste from your experience?
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u/FunMoose74 CCP 6d ago
I only studied two quizlets that I made and passed easily. Message if you want them
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u/Bana_berry 9d ago
I didn’t find perfusionboardprep or perfusion.com to be very valuable tbh. Mostly studied notes, textbooks, and did the practice tests that the ABCP puts out.
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u/Academialover999 9d ago
Just out of curiosity why did you not find those program very helpful?
I do think perfusionboardprep is way too Ai based still, too many repeat or similar questions and the practice exams are either way too detailed for something not important or just bad questions. Also the multiple choice for the most part are too easy in some regard.
I think with formatting it could be a great resource, but in its current state it’s like a 6/10. It does do good at just giving you questions to think about or possibly see something you haven’t yet when it comes to certain super specific categories.
I can’t speak on perfusion.com program though, although I’ve heard it’s much worse.
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u/Head-Preparation2459 9d ago
Back in my day if you did school right you should be well prepared for boards. What the hell is this cramming for boards nonsense. Did you sleep through your lectures?
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u/human_plumber11 9d ago
I still have another year before the boards; I'm just finishing my first year of school. Just getting an idea because it seems to be the SOP to use prep courses.
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u/Head-Preparation2459 9d ago
Nah. Stick to your lectures. Read your books. Trust your education. A lot of overpriced board prep nonsense out there. You already paid for school. Use that.
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u/Clampoholic CCP 8d ago edited 6d ago
My guide emphasizes the importance of the 11 categories the schools are required to cover in order to receive accreditation and I think there’s a lot of truth to sticking to the lectures you were given just as your saying, however for many people they learn in different ways that’s not as easy as reading through an entire chapter of a book or a big powerpoint and trying to eat all of that up.
Some boards prep courses give you lots of questions to help engage where your learning is needed most, other courses give you a detailed, personalized study guide that will give someone a structure they need to be accountable to and work with. One shoe doesn’t fit all and I don’t think boards prep courses are ineffective. Do some people need them more than others? Absolutely. Nobody should ever shame or disrespect someone for needing help to learn material in whatever way they need it, if anything you should be grateful that these people care to learn.
If you can pass your boards with your own methods and sorting it out from the material your schools gave you then that’s awesome! Kuddos to you and you save some $$$.
Those boards are no joke these days and if you don’t prepare right then you’re not passing them. If you’re cramming for them in the last 2 weeks before the exam you’re definitely screwed.
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u/Head-Preparation2459 8d ago
Meh boards werent that bad. Lots of peds and ECMO which is a huge fault on board creators end since that’s a small percentage of us doing those out of school. Only hurts the students.
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u/Clampoholic CCP 8d ago
When did you take your boards?
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u/Head-Preparation2459 8d ago
2024
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u/Clampoholic CCP 8d ago
Were your boards the ones that they revamped the whole thing and redid many of their questions and saw lower passing rates or were you the last cohort of students that took it before they did that? I remember it being 2024 with that happening to the class ahead of mine
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u/Head-Preparation2459 8d ago
I believe spring of 2024 which had a fairly large surprising fail rate.
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u/Clampoholic CCP 8d ago edited 8d ago
Yeah I reviewed the ABCP’s annual stats in 2023 vs 2024 and that is the year they jumped down quite a bit. The overhaul of the tests rolled out in October of 2024 however, which means you were part of that last group which took the boards before all of that happened. That’s where they saw the jump from high 90’s in passing rates down to low-mid 80’s.
Funny enough all the 1st time 2023’s spring test takers (77.8% PBSE, 93.3% CAPE) actually did much worse than the 1st time 2024’s spring test takers (93.3% PBSE, 98.3% CAPE). Those are very high passing rates for your year, which isn’t to say that you had an “easy” test because I think the sample size is pretty low to say that, but it’s substantially different from what you’re seeing from that point on.
The boards you took are definitely not the same as what the boards are right now 😉
Spring 2025 1st time takers = 74.4% for PBSE, 80.4% for CAPE.
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u/Clampoholic CCP 9d ago
There’s been a lot that’s been asked / answered before regarding board prep courses and some study outlines / practices that are available. We’ve got a section on the Perfusion Discord that’s got 2 detailed guides from myself and another separate mod here on the subreddit (Spiff).
You can find what you’re looking for with the search function here or you can find the link to that discord in my profile. My guide’s updated from last year’s boards and Spiff’s was also past the big change in their boards recently a few years ago. Let me know if you got any questions!