How to Study for the PANCE

First off, take a deep breath. You’ve been hearing about the PANCE for years and it seems like a looming hurdle, but you’ve been studying since the day PA school began. Every day, you learned something that will be on the exam. I’m going to run through how I prepared and you can use it as an example, but there is no one-size-fits-all kind of way to study!

1. I looked at how many days I had to study (11 days total), giving myself two days after graduating to celebrate and relax, one day to meticulously plan out my schedule, and the day before to hit the heavy-weighted material and do general review, which gave me 8 days to hit the books hard. I'm posting the schedule topics I hit on what days depending on what material I was more comfortable with and the rotations I had just finished. 

2. For each body system, I first read through Pance Prep Pearls, writing down any BIG things I knew I wanted to review. 

    - For topics I was struggling with, I talked through them aloud and pretended a patient was coming in to see me. So I’ll walk you through what I’d say if I’m having trouble with cardiac tamponade: I’d walk into a patient probably feeling horrible, low blood pressure, maybe some chest pain. I’d look at their neck and see some JVD. So I’m thinking we need to rule out tamponade so I probably already have an EKG, and that would show maybe some electrical alternans because the heart is kinda swinging in the fluid in the pericardial sac. So now I definitely need an echo, and that should confirm my diagnosis. Next, we need to quickly do a pericardiocentesis to get the fluid off the chest and figure out what caused the tamponade. 

3. Once I felt pretty solid on a body system, I’d take the Smarty Pance topic-specific PANCE exam. These are great review questions that are pretty straight-forward and help reinforce things you’ve learned, or teach you new things.

4. Then I’d go to Rosh review and do body system questions from there. These questions are typically more complicated and more difficult, challenging you to think deeper and not just regurgitate information. 

5. Then I’d do this all over again with every body system.

For my last day as review, I did the NCCPA practice exam and I thought it was helpful, although you don’t get to see what the right answers were, but it does tell you about where you stand with your knowledge. I also did some of the Smarty Pance Comprehensive PANCE exams and the Mock PANCE exam on Rosh Review. Most people say to take the whole day off before your exam, but I didn't want to deviate from how I usually took exams and I knew I couldn't relax if I wasn't studying. But do what works best for you!

Here are some great resources if you don’t know where to start:

-Pance Prep Pearls: A definite must-have, $50 for both volumes

-PANCE/PANRE Question Book: 600 exam questions and answers, $36

-Smarty Pance: Online question and blueprint bank, $45-$65 depending on length of access

-Rosh Review: Online question bank, $150-299 for 1 year depending on type of access

-NCCPA Practice Exams: 2 separate exams, $50 each

-UWorld: free 7 day trial with 60 questions, $199-$299 depending on type of access

-All Things PA-C practice exam: 300 question exam with answers, $27

If I were to do it all over again, I think I'd do it about the same, or maybe 1-2 more days of studying, but no more. I felt well-prepared and walked out of my exam feeling confident I had passed and not even that tired because I had been doing so many practice questions each day. I hope that helped you start on a game plan for your own studying! 

✤Courtney