CPM I: The instructor for CPM I has recently changed, but here is
some general information to get through the course. The most
important point: Don’t do too much work for CPM!!! It is only worth 3
credits versus other modules that are worth much more… like 12
credits. Study the weekend before the test. I recommend focusing on
lecture notes and skimming Mosby. As one of my classmates tells first
years, “Mosby is NOT high yield.” Enjoy preceptor and ask to see/do
anything your preceptor will let you. While you may be nervous at
first, you’ll be at a huge advantage knowing how to give injections,
take blood, etc. CPM may seem pointless now, but you’ll realize in
your 3rd and 4th year how important it is to know how to take a good
history and other essentials.
I disagree with the previous post to punt CPM and cramming the weekend before the exam. Especially don't cram the clinical skills part…much easier when the interview flows naturally instead of checklisting in your mind what you did and did not ask or do.
So CPM has changed a lot since the module director changed, but as tedious and miniscule those facts seemed in 1st year I find that they keep coming back in the third year. It's helpful to know the demographics of West side and east side of Buffalo. It's helpful to know the angle of flexion and extension for the elbows, knees, and ankle when writing up ortho progress notes. And surprisingly, it's even helpful to remember your cultural unit when a patient's mother tells you she uses salt and margarine for her daughter's injury. I haven't found the need to use Kleinman's 8 questions though. CPM's a tough course to be rightly appreciated by students…1st and 2nd year are so geared toward getting in the book and lecture time that administrators think we need, but students are always asking for more clinical time too. What we get is CPM for years 1 and 2 and a whole lot of criticisms.
Agree with the checklist comment.
The clinical skills exam is graded on a checklist because the Step 2 CS exam is graded on one. The primary purpose of the standardized exams is pretty much to get you used to the format for the CS exam, which our students generally do fine on (probably in large part because we do get practice for 3 years before takig the real one).
But the purpose of CPM is to prepare you for 3rd year and beyond. These courses much more accurately reflect the real world of medicine than do any of your basic science classes, which are meant to prepare you for Step 1, no matter what they tell you.
Treat CPM as your reminder about what you actually came to medical school to do. Treat your basic science modules as a way to introduce you to the stuff that'll be on Step 1. Studying for Step 1 will get you to integrate a ton of material into some kind of coherent way for the beginning of 3rd year, which of course does help you on the wards. But you'll end uphaving to reorganize everything during 3rd year in such a way that you can actually use it to treat patients, which is TOTALLY different from the way you need to have the information organized for board and shelf exams.
So.
Basic science classes -> Step 1
CPM -> intro to practical application of knowledge
Learning to take a good history (NOT a checklist history) and do an exam is what you need to take out of CPM I and II. If that means you don't memorize the demographics of Buffalo or angle of flexion (which you will need to relearn for ortho whether you learn it in CPM or not), then that means you sacrifice getting honors or HS in favor of actually learning a skill you need to learn.
On the flip side, I thought the final written exam in the second semester of CPM II was THE best exam I took in the first two years. I hope Dr Milling hasn't changed that one too much.
I disagree with some of the above. I got 100% on the CPM written final studying only the day before. Honestly Dr. Symons writes straightforward tests because he knows that the information is straightforward. Don't waste more time than you need to memorizing the minute details. A previous poster mentioned the importance of the demographic data you learn in CPM - things have changed and we don't learn all that minutia now that Dr blahblahblah (I can't remember the guy's name who used to teach) is gone. As for the clinical exams… practice doing this at preceptor every week. This is where you learn how to do the stuff in real life on real patients. The more you do it the more second nature it is and the more you know what "abnormal" vs "normal." During CPM1 you know close to nothing about disease processes and pathophysiology so its hard to correlate PE's with what you're learning in your basic science modules. Then you just basically have to fill in the blanks and make sure you know to do all the checklisted items so you can get the grade you're trying to get. I'm not saying you should shortcut the class I'm just being realistic. If you actually take the small-group sessions seriously you're learning the bulk of what you will carry over post-MS1.