Healthcare publisher Lippincott Williams & Wilkins (LWW), part of Wolters Kluwer Health, US, has launched Bratton's Family Medicine Board Review Powered by PrepU, an innovative new way for residents and physicians to study for the American Board of Family Medicine (ABFM) certification exam. This new, online test-prep programme makes studying for the exam more efficient than a textbook or online practice test by honing in on a physician's areas of weakness.
Practice questions are derived from Bratton's Family Medicine Board Review, 4th edition, one of the most widely used study texts for family medicine certification and re-certification. Bratton's Family Medicine Board Review Powered by PrepU claims to be much more than just an online version of the popular Bratton textbook of practice questions. It utilises PrepU technology to help bridge the gap between what a user knows and does not know. As questions are answered online, the programme automatically evaluates a user's comprehension of a subject area and then ramps up the difficulty level when multiple questions are answered correctly. This adaptive approach helps concentrate the user's energy on areas that require the most attention.
The PrepU platform was originally developed for the education market and has been highly successful at helping students improve content knowledge in a particular course or in preparation for licensing exams. The Bratton's application is the first time LWW has applied the technology to a test-prep product designed exclusively for practitioners rather than students.
In developing the new Bratton's programme, LWW spent the past year conducting focus groups with family medicine residents and practicing physicians to calibrate the difficulty level for every question in the text. The resulting product creates a more efficient way to study and is designed to better prepare practitioners for the boards.
Bratton's Family Medicine Board Review Powered by PrepU includes a total of 800 questions calibrated by difficulty. Detailed answer rationales and citations to journals or other books are also included.
