My Oral Exam Experience

Oral exams have been one of the most stressful things about residency for me. If you stress out about oral exams like me, hopefully this blog post can help you feel more prepared.

I have been doing pretty well in my oral exams (n=6 at this point), with feedback that I know the material but need to deliver it with more confidence. I had been practicing giving more confident deliveries for the past few months, so I walked into my most recent oral exam feeling pretty good. That is until I reached the last question, which was calculation-based. I hit a wall and couldn’t figure out how to proceed with the problem. I could tell the examiners were trying to lead me in the right direction, but in the moment my brain was frozen and I just couldn’t figure it out. I could feel my face getting flushed and my eyes started watering, but I resolved to finish the problem. Finally one of the examiners said something that made sense to me and I was able to proceed. I sat outside the room while they deliberated on my performance, surprisingly keeping it together but feeling certain that I had failed. When they called me back into the room to tell me the results, I found out that I passed! This was a huge relief for me, but the process was certainly a strain on my mental health.

Oral exams are pretty much a fact of life for medical physics residencies, given that residency programs want to prepare trainees for a career of explaining things to other healthcare professionals (and also ABR Part 3). The format is certainly intimidating if you don’t know what to expect, so I wanted to share some tips that I have found helpful for studying for oral exams during residency.

What to Expect

…it depends on the examiners. I can’t speak for every examiner’s style, but I can offer a couple of data points.

• They will ask you a question and you’ll give them an answer. Simple, really.
  At my institution, the examiners have each question displayed on a screen and will reveal further sub-questions as you progress. It’s a good idea to read the question out loud. First, so it’s clear what the question is asking, and second, to give yourself time to think.
  You may or may not be given a time limit to answer the question. If you don’t have a time limit, resist the urge to speak at length on every single thing that pops into your head regarding the subject the examiner is questioning you about. Answer the question as simply and concisely as you can. Any extra information you volunteer to the examiner can lead you into a rabbit hole of questioning. If you do volunteer extra information, make sure it’s something you feel confident speaking about, otherwise you may talk yourself into a corner that is difficult to get out of.
• Keep your answers organized. It’s good to have a logical flow of thoughts rather than rambling about a topic.
• If you are allowed to use a whiteboard, use it to help organize your thoughts. Write down the key points you’re going to hit on and stick to them.

• Be confident, but don’t over-confidently deliver incorrect information.

• If you don’t know something, it’s not the end of the world. If you don’t know the answer to a question, take it as an opportunity to show the examiners your thought process. Tell them the steps you would take the answer the question if you had access to xyz piece of information. Tell them what information is missing in your head and what specific resource you could use to get that information.

• When I had my first oral exam, I thought that I was required to stand up in front of all of the examiners the whole time. I’m not sure what made me think this, but standing in front of everyone increased my nerves significantly. I felt much better when I sat down at the table with my examiners. It made the dynamic feel a little less weird and helped me calm down a bit. Now, I usually only stand up when I’m working something out on the whiteboard. This is just one example, but it could be a good idea to pinpoint ways to make accomodations for yourself that make the environment less stressful.

Study Tips

Engage with the Material

The key to succeeding in oral exams is to actively with the material, rather than passively reading it. One strategy I use is creating slideshows of the content as I learn it, approaching it with the mindset that I will someday need to teach it. By preparing slides as if I’ll eventually teach the material to others, I accomplish two goals: studying for the exam through active engagement and developing valuable teaching resources I can use later for lectures or continuing education courses.

Another technique is to put yourself in the examiner’s shoes by developing potential questions they might ask. This exercise helps you anticipate how the questions may play out. The practice should be fluid, as to better help you prepare for unexpected questions as well as those you anticipated. For those who find it challenging to generate questions, the Canadian College of Physicists in Medicine has great resources for their certification exams. I regularly use these questions to test my ability to explain concepts clearly.

Flash Cards

I also use Anki flash cards to help me recall basic information that I think examiners would expect me to know offhand. I know physicists love to claim that memorization is people with weak moral fiber, etc., but I have found memorizing basic bits of information or equation building blocks to be useful. As long as you have context for the memorized information and know how to use it, I don’t see a problem with memorization.

Practice Out Loud

Practicing verbal communication is important, especially if you tend to freeze when speaking in front of others. While understanding concepts is usually the main focus of studying, the ability to express them clearly under pressure requires practice too. Ideally, find a study partner who can simulate the exam environment with you. However, if this isn’t possible, large language models are a great alternative. Prompt the LLM that you’re a medical physics resident preparing for an oral exam in X topic and that you’d like to study Y subtopic. I like using ChatGPT for this because the voice chat feature allows you to seek real-time feedback. This can be pretty humbling if you prompt the AI to give more rigorous feedback.

That’s all for now! Good luck on your oral exams. Take care of yourself. Reach out if you have any questions.