The Textbooks 

 

Dr. Carlos Pestana's 180 Vignettes - ask any medical student and they have read this book during their surgery clerkship. Its a great, succinct read that presents a simple case and appropriate next steps in management. It provides the best baseline knowledge. Master these vignettes and then do some in depth reading to supplement using the suggest clerkship textbook.

Unofficial Pestana Kaplan Notes - these notes were transcribed from the Kaplan audio lectures by which the Pestana book was based upon. If you're not willing to spend the extra $15 for the book these notes should suffice. 

Essentials of General Surgery - a great resource with detailed text. Dr. Dunnington actually writes the breast chapter in this text, therefore it's crucial to read this section before the early morning didactic sessions. This text is great to supplement Dr. Carlos Pestana's 180 Vignettes.
 

 

The Practice Questions 

 

UWorld Step 2 CK Question Bank - well known to every second year medical student as the go to resource for USMLE Step 1 preparation. But alas! this is an excellent resource for third year shelf exam preparation and USMLE Step 2 CK preparation. We recommend doing the approximately 200 UWorld surgery questions prior to taking the shelf exam. But beware, this is not sufficient for good preparation. The surgery shelf exam is similar to a internal medicine shelf exam. Take advantage of the other ~1500 medicine questions in the UWorld question bank. 

 

NMBE Self Assessments - These are an excellent resource because these questions are composed by the same people who write the shelf exams. This resource is a pretty good gauge of where you will score on your shelf exam. Just like all other NBMEs there is no answer key at the end and you cannot view which questions you specifically answered incorrectly. It does give you categorical scoring so you can focus on areas of weakness prior to exam day.