Some fresh impressions from the boards:

1. know your cardiac murmurs and PFTs

2. know your hepatitides

3. get used to the 80 year old with proximal muscle weakness: really, she's coming again?

4. know your guidelines, especially on cardiovascular risk factor modification and it's relative impact

5. know about post-infectious complications of all sorts

5. altogether a more reasonable exam than the USMLEs, closer to what we actually see and do

6. read, read and read; and do the MKSAP questions, all of them; and read....

I hope you all had some good learning on the wards and at resident report. Some follow-up to last weeks sessions:

1. In her noon conference on OSA, Neomi Shah had mentioned that OSA might have protective effects in an acute MI. I asked her for some references and here is her reply: 'My study at Monte is the first to show this potential cardioprotective role of OSA in the setting of an acute MI. However, it has been shown in animal models.'  Attached a short piece from Chest that she sent along. She'll let us know when her data are published.

2. In regards to last weeks CRS, our very own Hector Perez co-authored a piece in Neurology on leptomeningeal metastases, paper attached