Hi Everyone!
Hope everyone enjoyed their breaks and their R&R time! I
can't believe we are back! I had an absolutely amazing time over
break enjoying the family, friends, Boston, visiting Gramps in
Syracuse, eating Clam Chowda', Cape Cod, and most importantly not
taking any tests (haha).
Part 1 Boards
After you finish your basic science portion of the curriculum
here at National, you are required to pass Part 1 National Boards.
It's a 6-portion, 2-day affair. The sections are Biochemistry,
General Anatomy, Spinal Anatomy, Microbiology, Pathology, and
Physiology. Each Exam is 110 multiple-choice questions and it
covers everything you've learned. Sounds intimidating, doesn't it?
It is and it isn't.
I just finished the boards and am pleased to tell you that as a
National student, you will be MORE than prepared to pass boards.
You are going against the combined scores of ALL the other
chiropractic schools. Not to sound elitist, but most of the other
schools DO NOT match up with the level of academic rigor that is
delivered at National University of Health Sciences. NUHS' academic
success can be demonstrated by looking at the percentage of
students here that pass Part 1 boards. It's something like
98%. If you can pass the classes here and understand the
material, well you won't have a problem getting boards behind
you.
Here's how I prepared for Part 1 Boards:
- From the first day back from school, we had 2 weeks before
board exams. I talked with A LOT of older tris who all said they
freaked out about it, but all concluded that they were probably
over-prepared for it. It seemed the sweet spot was about 2 weeks of
studying.
- Get your hands on the Irene Gold Board Review Packets. I have
them as a PDF on my DropBox account. Print them out in the library
(free printing: your tuition dollars hard at work ;). There are 6
packets each, about 50-80 pages in length. I got through each one
once. Others got through 2-3 times. I am a slow reader so once is
enough for me to grasp the information. Go at your pace. I then
went through the Board Review Book that the school gives you during
their 'board reviews' back in July and went through the practice
questions. This ended up being more helpful that I thought once I
finished taking the actual Boards.
- Days leading up for the Boards, make sure you eat healthy,
hydrate, and for heaven's sake be RESTED for the exams! Day 1
(Friday) was 7:15am to 4:30pm of 4 sections. That's 440 questions.
Day 2 was just 2 sections from 8:30 to noon. The Moral: Be rested
so your brain is firing.
Now, I don't know if I passed yet, scores come out in October,
but I felt solid finishing each exam. I tried to summarize those
key points as the HIGHEST LEVERAGE board preparation you can do to
pass. If you want to prepare more, that's totally fine. This worked
for me and just wanted to share with the blogosphere.
Spending time with my family.
Of course, after boards there is a nice gathering at the local
JT's bar for some "wobbly pops and giggly juice" as my friend
called it (haha). A solid group of my buds went out to lunch at DMK
burger bar (grass fed deliciousness) and went disc golfing in
Lombard (awesome).
I am wicked excited to be done with boards and come back to the
real world where people aren't so uptight about passing boards and
where we can just focus on classes and some fun seminars next
month!
Sincerely,
Christian