We're really in the homestretch, and we're comparing notes here. We are going to finish exactly 1.30, if not a couple of minutes before. We know folks have flights, so don't worry. Even though we're off schedule, we will finish at 1.30. So a couple of just thoughts. This is the homestretch here. You can kind of relax your brains a little bit. This is easy stuff. Again, these questions that we go through here, they've not been vetted. They've not been tested. So it's fun to argue with them, because some of them are lousy questions. We've done our best to pull out the ones that are super lousy, but there's still some bad questions in there. Just learn from them. Even if the question's bad, go to the rationale. There's so much information in the rationale. Learn from them is really the key part. So these questions that we're doing here, it's questions that faculty for this course and the faculty for the last X courses have written. So we submit questions. Then they get vetted amongst themselves. They get reviewed. We try to make them as good as we can. But they have not been tested by hundreds of people taking the real exam over time. So the real questions are going to be a little bit better, and Jerry has better insight to it. When the invitation comes out from SCCM requesting if you want to join the committee, you say yes. You may well be assigned to a question-writing group. So there is your chance to improve on that. So I was asked to ask the next slide here. This course has changed a lot since the pandemic. Before the pandemic, it was a five-day course. All the lectures you have online were done live. It was five days of total brain saturation. During the pandemic, we tried all different approaches, and this is a new approach coming out of the pandemic. So please give us your feedback. What we did last time two years ago was all cases and questions, and it was really draining. So in between, we threw in some fun trivia stuff. So we're going to teach you in the next five minutes stuff that will not be on the boards. Who is the first SCCM president Jerry can't answer? First SCCM president. Max's Cafe is your hint. Come on. Someone say it? Water bottle. Max Harry Wheal, first SCCM president, one of the early, early pediatric intensivists. What year? What year was SCCM formed? 70? Really close. Well, its first president was 1971. Was it actually formed in 70 or 71? I'm not sure. The website says 71. So pretty good. That's good. All right. ARDS. When was it first described, I should say? 1967. How many years later before PARDS was first described and reported? 2000 something. Yeah. 2005. 2015. So Pelique first published PARDS in 2015. 2015. Almost 50 years later. 48 years without a definition for pediatric ARDS relying on just the adult definition. Who developed it? My career in mechanical ventilation. Who developed and designed the first mechanical ventilator? Mr. Ventilator Dowel. Forrest Bird. Okay. See if anyone knows this. See if Jerry knows this. What was the first prototype ventilator built out of? No way. Do you know, Jerry? Kitchen cans. Yeah. Was it some kitchen cans? Kitchen cans. Yeah. So having known Forrest, he built it out of strawberry jam cans, a series of cans that were hollowed out and attached together. They were strawberry jam cans. Yeah. Right? That was the first ventilator. The first use of a first ventilator was actually military use before commercial use. What two pediatric intensivists started this board review course? I heard yesterday from Ed it was 2006. Who were they? Heidi Dalton. Heidi Dalton and Tony Slonim. Both in DC Children's at the time. Year the first neonate was cannulated for ECMO? Esperanza. Esperanza. You got the bonus question. What year? 70 something. 75. First adult. That was earlier, wasn't it? No, earlier, 71. First adult was a trauma victim with a crush injury in 71 and Esperanza was 75. All right. Something totally unrelated. We've all flown to get here. Busiest airports in the world by passenger numbers because it's different than by flights. So Atlanta Hartsfield, number one. If anyone can guess number two, stop studying for the boards because you're the best guess there is. Number two. Where? LAX? Not LAX. LAX is eight. JFK? JFK is not in the top ten. Houston? He throws? Is it good? He throws not. No, in the world. World. World. China? Maybe. Dubai. Ooh. Dubai. Oh, okay. Dubai. Okay. Dubai has become the second busiest airport in the world. Ireland? Oh, sorry? Yeah. Oh, sorry. Atlanta Hartsfield. Yeah. Number one's Atlanta Hartsfield. Number two's Dubai. Three Dallas. Four London Heathrow. Five Tokyo Haneda. Denver. Istanbul. LAX. Chicago O'Hare's number nine. And New Delhi's number ten. JFK's not on the list. If you do it by flights, it's a very different list. By flights, it's Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Denver's four, Las Vegas is the fifth busiest in the world by flights. Six is LAX. Seven's Charlotte. Eight is Istanbul. Nine is Kennedy. And ten is Tokyo. All right. Stuff that will never be on the boards. All right. Test-taking skills. All right. Everything in this little mini-talk is based on experience, anecdotes, and common sense. There's no definitive data. There's nothing published on this. If any faculty is still here, please jump in and offer your thoughts, because these are just thoughts. So, my top ten. Relax. It's just a test. It's a big test, but it's just a text in the scheme of life. The passing rate in 2022 was 87%. I just looked this morning, and I hate to tell you this, but the passing rate in – sorry, that was 2020 – 2022 was 80%. So, a little bit lower. So, hopefully, next year, it will be higher. You may ask me at lunch, folks who take this course, does that increase your chances? We all hope and think it does, but we don't have data on that. But having taught this course for many, many years, I've not seen many or any repeat people, and the feedback that we've gotten has been very positive. So, hopefully, you're in the at-least percent group. I would suggest you have all this material. Review this a few weeks before the boards. Go back. Look at them again. Every couple days, watch a different lecture. I've seen people prepare for the books by taking out their favorite textbook and reading it. That doesn't work. There's no way that that's going to be how you can study for the boards. All of us have kind of done that for you. So, come back to these lectures, the live ones as well as the prior recorded ones. Look through them again. It will help you. It will synthesize what you need to know at least as well as we think you need to know it. We've said this several times. The long stems, they're getting shorter and shorter. The boards are doing a better job of avoiding having to read five minutes for one question. But if there is a long question, if there's a picture, read the question, the key point, and read the choices first. Go back. It will absolutely save you time. Okay. This one's real. If you don't know the answers to the first ten questions, don't panic. True story. Right now, all of our recertifications are at home quarterly. But the last one I did in a parametric center, I sat there and the first ten questions, I swear they gave me the wrong test. No idea. I thought it was a genetics recertification. No idea. So, I panic. I'm like, oh my God, I'm not going to... Just relax. Find a question you know and keep moving and then go back. Just tell yourself that the first questions are the experimental test questions. But don't panic because it really will happen because it did happen to me. If you don't know the answer, I think someone this morning said it, spending more time on something you don't know is not going to make you know it. So, put down something, guess, leave it blank. If you leave it blank, make sure you know which ones to come back to. The electronic stuff makes it a lot easier. In terms of guessing, don't leave it blank. Make sure at the end everything is filled. Leaving it blank is wrong. If you fill in something, at least you have a chance. And I don't know of any science behind guessing. My daughter and I debate this all the time. I'm like, just guess B, always guess B. She's like, no, Dad, each time guess something different. If you're guessing, I don't really know which is better. Come up with your strategy, but at least put something down after you've eliminated the clearly wrong choices as you've heard us go through. Don't overthink the questions. And the more experience you get, the more likely you're going to do this. The boards are going to ask about horses, not zebras. If there's something, well, it could be one in a million, and something that could be one in ten, it's the one in ten. It's going to be the common stuff. The day or evening before, re-watch Janet Zimrin's toxicology talks and or Ed's redo of them, the shorter version. But there's going to be, I don't know, ten questions on this on the exam somewhere. As much as you think you know it the day before, just go back and watch these. I guarantee you'll pick up some points on that. The evening before, this is up to you. Relaxing dinner with a bottle of wine or cramming. You've got to know who you are. I'm a crammer. The night before, I'm going to get every last bit of knowledge I can. I'll forget it three days later, but I'm going to cram. Others are like, if I look at another question, I'm going to puke. Go out to dinner and have a bottle of wine or at least a glass. You've got to know yourself and do whatever is best for you. Don't let someone tell you what to do. Same thing in the morning. Like, how much caffeine? Like, it's a time test. You're allowed to take bio breaks, but you've got to know the size of your bladder because every break takes up time. So you've got to figure that out. And lastly, as I started, relax. There's enough stress in life. Through this process, you're going to learn. You're going to become better physicians. You're going to be more knowledgeable. Learn through this. And again, it's just a test. And keep your eyes on the prize.

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