AOBIM results are out, my DO brethren!
I took both because I'm historically not the world's best test taker and a few years ago when my program first became ACGME, a couple people failed ABIM but passed AOBIM, which freaked faculty out, so between those two things and my baseline risk aversion I was persuaded to part with an extra $800. n=1, but to be ABIM had more difficult material, but better questions so if I didn't know it was really because of a knowledge gap, whereas AOBIM was easier with more straightforward questions, but because it shorter questions and less context clues, if I didn't know it was because I forgot a factoid, not because I lacked clinical reasoning. But in the end I passed both comfortably, well above the mean on AOBIM and well above passing but just below the mean on ABIM. I don't remember my ITE scores, I know they were all In the 65-85 percentile, but since I have test anxiety on board exams and not on ITEs I knew I couldn't rest on my laurels there anyway.
Things I did to study:
--MSKAP. I did all the questions once throughout residency (finished during board prep toward the end), then reset and did it all over again. Sometimes I did question sets of just ones I had gotten wrong previously. Always went back and read the ones I got wrong or starred.
--Board Basics is great. I found it hard to sit down to read, but I used it to review the material I got questions on, and annotated extra info in there sometimes. Used like an encyclopedia, it's golden.
--ThePassMachine: recommended to me by an attending and was money well spent. If you're someone who wants more guidance, like a curriculum and lectures, this is great. Some lecturers are better than others, but most are solid. Dr. Raj Dasgupta does pulm and rheum and a few others and it's particularly good. It also comes with an extensive qbank (questions are a mixed bag of good vignette vs factoid, but it does include esoteric stuff MSKAP doesn't). Not cheap, but gives you access for 12 months with pass guarantee (if you fail they reimburse you and give you access until you pass) so for me it was money well spent.
--NEJM Knowledge Plus: did not pay for this, was paid for by our program. I really liked their questions, and the way it did timed repetition and explanations. I didn't like that you couldn't specifically go back to old questions/explanations. I don't know how much it costs but I found it useful.
--Cleveland Clinic Virtual Board Review: made mandatory but also paid for by my program. Live course now presented online thanks to COVID. Mixed bag: some parts (Nephro, heme, daily high yield pearls) were golden, other parts were awful. It was also death by powerpoint every day for 5 days, with a lot of technical issues. I preferred the flexibility that PassMachine's video lectures gave me.
--I did NOT do UWorld, mostly because I spent $800 on AOBIM and also bought my SUV new tires and then didn't want to spend more money. The ABIM questions really felt like MKSAP to me and I think you can get away with this plan if you're dedicated to reviewing explanations in MKSAP in detail. Maybe UWorld's better, I'll never have to find out.