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- Aug 8, 2014
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Hey,
Several questions here and I know there have been past posts on this but I just wanted a sort of updated idea:
1. What did everyone think of the RITE this year? I actually had time to study this year as opposed to last and that primarily consisted of going through old picture books and literally not even learning any real systematic approach but just pure rote memorizing the image and knowing what that answer was (as you can imagine nothing to do with real learning) and so I think the pictures were at least 60-70% repeats. That was by far the most time efficient and useful thing I did. They also seem to test really super detailed knowledge of cortical anatomy and aphasia and dementias which, to be honest, I almost never see in clinical practice this far in my training. I do see aphasia obviously in the stroke unit but it's not usually tested so indepth.
Anyways, I almost felt like it was a joke when I was doing the pictures section this year. There were times I wouldn't even look at the question stem I just knew the picture from previous years and this knew the answer immediately.
I felt so stupid for not doing this last year when I did horribly because I didn't study at all really and definitely didn't look at old pictures.
2. I know a lot of people don't care about rite and nor does their program but I hate to say it but my attendings and even the way some co residents view you is DEFINITELY effected by rite performance, very similar to BUSTBONES experience. If you don't get in the 90th percentile in my program it's considered not that good which is strange because I'm definitely at a mid tier program. I think it's because my program is half and half FMG as well as attendings? Maybe these people grew up in a more testing based rigid environment? I'm not sure but it seems like some programs don't even care about it and it's genuinely only for the residents to gauge their knowledge. My program, every year, if you got above 80th percentile they send an email out to the entire department congratulating you but really it exposes those that didn't get it and so as you may imagine a lot of the attendings judge you off that.
3. I thought this years RITE was significantly easier than last year but that also could be because I'm a PGY3 now so in general I've seen more and have read more.
4. The only reason I actually care this year about getting in the 90th percentile is because a lot of pain fellowships that I'm applying for are requesting RITE scores. I've contacted the AAN requesting a letter stating this is considered a misuse of the examination and I should not give the rite score report BUT I also don't want pain programs to simply toss my application out because of that so I tried this year...but now that I know how the exam is, the minutia of detail, and the absurd amount of repeat pictures on the exam , I GENUINELY believe it's a huge mistake to select candidates for fellowship based on it. I know people always say that for standardized tests but the RITE was obviously not designed to be used like that and it's very easy to get over 90% of the picture book correct without really having any clue what you're doing just by memorizing old pictures. I don't know if anesthedia or PMR or other specialties in general have their set up to stratify residents but it's obvious the rite isn't set up this way and now I can genuinely say rite score, as long as your around "average" doesn't translate clinically and it's a shame fellowships are using it but maybe they just don't know
Several questions here and I know there have been past posts on this but I just wanted a sort of updated idea:
1. What did everyone think of the RITE this year? I actually had time to study this year as opposed to last and that primarily consisted of going through old picture books and literally not even learning any real systematic approach but just pure rote memorizing the image and knowing what that answer was (as you can imagine nothing to do with real learning) and so I think the pictures were at least 60-70% repeats. That was by far the most time efficient and useful thing I did. They also seem to test really super detailed knowledge of cortical anatomy and aphasia and dementias which, to be honest, I almost never see in clinical practice this far in my training. I do see aphasia obviously in the stroke unit but it's not usually tested so indepth.
Anyways, I almost felt like it was a joke when I was doing the pictures section this year. There were times I wouldn't even look at the question stem I just knew the picture from previous years and this knew the answer immediately.
I felt so stupid for not doing this last year when I did horribly because I didn't study at all really and definitely didn't look at old pictures.
2. I know a lot of people don't care about rite and nor does their program but I hate to say it but my attendings and even the way some co residents view you is DEFINITELY effected by rite performance, very similar to BUSTBONES experience. If you don't get in the 90th percentile in my program it's considered not that good which is strange because I'm definitely at a mid tier program. I think it's because my program is half and half FMG as well as attendings? Maybe these people grew up in a more testing based rigid environment? I'm not sure but it seems like some programs don't even care about it and it's genuinely only for the residents to gauge their knowledge. My program, every year, if you got above 80th percentile they send an email out to the entire department congratulating you but really it exposes those that didn't get it and so as you may imagine a lot of the attendings judge you off that.
3. I thought this years RITE was significantly easier than last year but that also could be because I'm a PGY3 now so in general I've seen more and have read more.
4. The only reason I actually care this year about getting in the 90th percentile is because a lot of pain fellowships that I'm applying for are requesting RITE scores. I've contacted the AAN requesting a letter stating this is considered a misuse of the examination and I should not give the rite score report BUT I also don't want pain programs to simply toss my application out because of that so I tried this year...but now that I know how the exam is, the minutia of detail, and the absurd amount of repeat pictures on the exam , I GENUINELY believe it's a huge mistake to select candidates for fellowship based on it. I know people always say that for standardized tests but the RITE was obviously not designed to be used like that and it's very easy to get over 90% of the picture book correct without really having any clue what you're doing just by memorizing old pictures. I don't know if anesthedia or PMR or other specialties in general have their set up to stratify residents but it's obvious the rite isn't set up this way and now I can genuinely say rite score, as long as your around "average" doesn't translate clinically and it's a shame fellowships are using it but maybe they just don't know
