Best PANCE / PANRE Review Book (2022)

If you are getting ready to take the PANCE or the PANRE exam, you will probably agree with this statement:

Best PANCE / PANRE Review Books

With all of the different study options out there, it’s hard to know which are the best PANCE / PANRE review books to get the most bang for your buck to help you pass the exam.

To help people certifying or re-certifying for their physician assistant license, I wrote this article with input from PAs who have successfully passed both exams.

Best PANCE / PANRE Review Book

While the thought of taking the PANCE / PANRE exams can produce a lot of stress, spending your time with the best PANCE / PANRE study guides will definitely go a long way in terms of helping you pass your exam. My desire is that this article helps you determine the right study books for you, particularly if you are looking to get a PANCE / PANRE study book right now.

1. Comprehensive Certification / Recertification Review – AAPA Endorsed

A Comprehensive Review for the Certification and Recertification Examinations for Physician Assistants was developed by the AAPA (American Academy of PAs) and the PAEA (Physician Assistant Education Association). This study guide is a helpful resource for people studying for one of the exams and students who are currently in school. For students, the Comprehensive Review book should provide value for rotation and class exams in addition to future PANCE prep.

Usable for both the PANCE and the PANRE, a Comprehensive Review for the Certification and Recertification Examinations for Physician Assistants includes general knowledge set up in compact outlines as well as hundreds of questions modeled off of the NCCPA (National Commission on Certification of Physician Assistants) framework.

The Comprehensive Review for the Certification and Recertification Examinations for Physician Assistants also provides access to a post-test that can be used for additional CME credit. This PANRE / PANCE study guide starts with several hundred questions to assess your knowledge before reviewing the information that follows.

The Comprehensive Review for the Certification and Recertification Examinations for Physician Assistants does not go deep on extra knowledge.

Some might find the content review in Comprehensive Review for the Certification and Recertification Examinations for Physician Assistants to be too basic as far as real preparation for the PANRE or PANCE exams. Said differently, it feels like a review guide that will function more to wake up existing knowledge in your brain rather than one that will teach you something new. Also, the publishing quality has historically been quite bad which will lead to the book itself breaking down with heavy use.

Summary Points
Comprehensive Review for the Certification and Recertification Examinations for Physician Assistants is the offically recommended guide for the PANCE / PANRE exams which makes it hard to beat.
Pros
  • Endorsed by the AAPA and the PAEA.
  • Self-assessment credit an added bonus to exam prep.
Cons
  • Does not offer much new information that will add to your knowledge.

2. Davis’s PA Exam Review – Best Guarantee

For people who can stand the quirks of Davis’s PA Exam Review, it does earn high marks and is well-regarded by people who used it exclusively for exam prep. As such, Davis’s PA Exam Review should be considered a standalone PANCE / PANRE review guide and, given the interesting guarantee (see below), it is not surprising that it has been used by many with successful results.

Davis’s PA Exam Review offers practice exam questions which one might argue are the best part of this study guide. Featuring an organization style that mixes up the various clinical sections, it is one of the challenging PA exam review guides on the market. The level of detail is intense and the practice questions are quite hard. The questions are, some would argue, the most like the ones on the actual exam which makes the hundreds available in Davis’s PA Exam Review quite valuable.

Davis’s PA Exam Review takes the unusual step of offering a money-back guarantee if you do not pass the PANCE or PANRE exam. There are some qualifications as far as who can get their money back and some hoops to jump through but, on the whole, this adds great credibility to their commitment to being a quality PANRE study resource.

Davis’s PA Exam Review is not organized by content area, making it confusing at times.

Some might find Davis’s PA Exam Review disorganized. The clinical sections in this review book are all mixed together, making a clinically-organized study process difficult to pull off. However, if one can get used to it, it has some merit given its similarity to the actual exam.

Summary Points
Davis’s PA Exam Review is another good review choice with an excellent, money-back guarantee.
Pros
  • Detailed, difficult questions will challenge your knowledge.
  • Money-back guarantee if you do not pass the exam.
Cons
  • Jumbled organization will turn off people looking to study topic by topic.

3. PANCE Prep Pearls – Best for Current Students

The PANCE Prep Pearls hails from New York and was created by a PA professor (he also wrote the The PANCE and PANRE Question Book) to help with board review but has a wider application then that.

PANCE Prep Pearls presents content in a concise, easy-to-understand manner. Organized around disease states, the PANCE Prep Pearls delivers important facts combined with nice graphics and charts which make it helpful for people who learn best visually. The text is well-annotated to highlight key points and help drill in gold standards and the like when thinking about pathophysiology and disease processes. PANCE Prep Pearls will also teach you mnemonics and shortcuts to improve your recall.

The PANCE Prep Pearls is also quite useful as a study guide to accompany your other PA materials while in PA school. That is why many PA students might find it useful as they start their curriculums as a companion through their lecture years. PANCE Prep Pearls also has longevity as a professional guide once out in the workforce and the clinical pearls will stick with you.

For people who like scribbling in your books, PANCE Prep Pearls will be pleasing as the paper quality and durability are quite good, making it quite receptive to your notes.

Be careful where you buy PANCE Prep Pearls as there are seems to be some fake copies circulating on the market.

There are reportedly some fake copies of PANCE Prep Pearls circulating on the market so be wary of who you buy it from if you decide to get it. How can you tell? Look for a misspelling on the title or throughout the book or missing pages. Unfortunately, one might find negative reviews of PANCE Prep Pearls online but this is not due to the content as much as the imposters. Some might find the text dense but, given the amount of information it contains, it does a good job with communicating relevant information even if it could use a splash of color.

Summary Points
Legitimate copies of PANCE Prep Pearls are well worth the investment for both people prepping for the PANCE and PA students in the classroom.
Pros
  • Excellent information useful at multiple stages of training.
Cons
  • Fake copies are circulating so caveat emptor.

4. PANCE & PANRE Question Book – Best PANCE / PANRE Review Questions

The PANCE and PANRE Question Book: A Comprehensive Question and Answer Study Review Book for the Physician Assistant National Certification and Recertification Exam First Edition is written by a well-regarded author (the same one who wrote PANCE Prep Pearls) in the PANCE and PANRE study guide world.

The PANCE and PANRE Question Book is designed around improving your studying and test-taking ability as it is laid out in a question and answer format. Offering over five hundred questions, the PANCE and PANRE Question Book also has detailed explanations which accompany the correct answer choices.

The PANCE and PANRE Question Book utilizes text and images such as radiographs to test your knowledge in different ways. The content is fresh and relevant to what one will see on the exam. The best part about the PANCE and PANRE Question Book is that it provides question repetition to ready your brain for the types of questions (particularly complex ones) that you will see on the exam. The PANCE and PANRE Question Book supposedly also provides the ability to earn self-assessment credits (up to 20 AAPA-approved ones).

Some of the questions in the PANCE and PANRE Question Book seem unnecessarily hard.

One might find the questions in the PANCE and PANRE Question Book to be too hard when compared to the actual exams. This can lead to feeling frustrated which might impede one’s ability to feel confident on the day of the actual test. However, some people might appreciate the harder questions during the studying process as it will make the questions experienced on the test day easier to swallow. Also, the question topic density did not seem to precisely reflect what would be seen on the exams themselves.

Summary Points
The PANCE and PANRE Question Book features a great set of practice questions and is a nice accompanying text to the PANCE Prep Pearls for studying.
Pros
  • High-quality, current and relevant questions.
  • Excellent complement to PANCE Prep Pearls.
Cons
  • Overly tough questions might leave some feeling less confident about their preparation.

5. Physician Assistant Exam for Dummies

While many people might feel like using a “Dummies” series book as a PANCE / PANRE review guide might be distasteful, there are somethings to love about it. Physician Assistant Exam for Dummies will make studying more fun than some of the other review books as it is written in a lighthearted way.

Physician Assistant Exam for Dummies reviews core material and also features five full-length practice tests which are arguably the best part of this review guide. Physician Assistant Exam for Dummies also has sections that will improve your test-taking with tips and strategies. For anyone looking for a simple PANCE / PANRE review book that does not cover too much detail, Physician Assistant Exam for Dummies will likely hit the mark.

Physician Assistant Exam for Dummies can be thin on material at times and has not been updated in a while.

While medicine does not change all that much, Physician Assistant Exam for Dummies has not been updated in a while which makes it less relevant than some of the other PANCE / PANRE review guides out there.

Summary Points
Physician Assistant Exam for Dummies is one to consider for anyone looking for a lighter read, particularly as a complement to another review guide.
Pros
  • Fun & lighthearted way to review for the exams.
Cons
  • Thin on depth and dated.

6. PANRE Flashcard Study System – Best PANCE / PANRE Flashcards

The PANRE Flashcard Study System is a good way to review for the PANRE exam and complement your studying using a flash card system. Produced by Mometrix, a leader in test preparation and study flash cards, the PANRE Exam Flashcard Study System is a well-designed way to amp your PANRE study process.

The PANRE Flashcard Study System is broken into task and organ system sections. The task section is oriented around getting you ready for some of the ancillary topics related to clinical medicine. For example, the task section covers topics such as the history and physical, laboratory skill, pharmaceutical interventions and general preventative health maintenance. The organ system section covers more of the nuts and bolts of clinical medicine as it relates to the PANRE. Topics reviewed in the organ system section include standard clinical topics such as dermatology, cardiovascular medicine, pulmonology and more.

The PANRE Flashcard Study System is an excellent choice for drilling home facts in a lighting-fast way. Working through the small facts presented by these PANRE flash cards will help fill holes in your knowledge base and make it more enjoyable overall to study. While some might consider using the PANRE Flashcard Study System as a single review guide for the PANRE, it is better designed to be used as a complement to another PANRE study guide.

The PANRE Flashcard Study System flashcards are fairly durable. The company behind the PANRE Flashcard Study System made a concerted effort to print them on high quality card stock so they can withstand any heavy studying. The print size is large enough that they will not strain your eyes. Because these flash cards are small, they can be taken with you and used when you have extra minutes during a shift or while waiting for a coffee.

The PANRE Flashcard Study System could use additional content upgrades.

Some will find the questions on some of the PANRE Flashcard Study System flashcards to be too generic and broad to be useful for comprehensive studying. Also, there is a do-it-yourself aspect to these PANRE flash cards as you have to tear them out yourself.

Summary Points
The PANRE Flashcard Study System is a complementary study system to help you review PANRE material on the go.
Pros
  • Portable material enhances PANRE study process and knowledge recall.
  • Durable flashcards with large print.
Cons
  • Some might find some of the cards to be light on information.

The PANCE & PANRE Exams – An Introduction

Before knowing what are the best PANCE and PANRE prep books, it is a good idea to know what the PANCE and PANRE exams even are. PANCE stands for the Physician Assistant National Certifying Exam and is the exam that a physician assistant must take after graduating from an accredited PA program before being licensed for the first time. The PANCE exam consists of 300 questions spread out over five blocks. Each block is one hour long and the questions are multiple choice. The PANCE exam may be helpful in predicting a candidate’s future success in the PA field.

PANRE stands for Physician Assistant National Recertifying Exam and is the exam required for physician assistants who wish to renew their PA license before expiration. The PANRE exam only has four 1 hour blocks and consists of 240 questions. As with the PANCE, the PANRE exam questions are also multiple choice. Currently, the PANRE exam needs to be taken in the ninth or tenth year.

The questions on the PANRE exam are created by PAs and physicians working together jointly in committees. Writing questions is no easy task and the members of the committees are chosen based on attributes such as their clinical experience and their writing abilities. Demographic characteristics, including location, specialty and whether they work in a clinic or a hospital setting are also consider when choosing a PANCE exam writer.

Once the writers are chosen, they create their own batch of questions which are reviewed by other medical experts and writers. From this initial batch, only a handful of questions are chosen to be featured on the PANCE exam. Experimental, or pre-test, questions are also added to the PANCE exam to collect data as to whether these questions should be scored on future exams.

The scoring system for the PANRE consists of a simple binary system. Utilizing two different computer programs to ensure accuracy, correct answers are given one point while incorrect answers are given zero points, producing an overall score. This raw score is then entered into a special software algorithm that incorporates question difficulty into the score (based on something called a Rasch model) to create a proficiency measure for the exam. The point of this whole process is to attempt to simulate a scenario in which every candidate took the same exam.

This proficiency measure can be used to create a score that can be scaled over time and cohorts and compared against a reference, or control, group of candidates. The objective of this process is to try and connect the candidate’s knowledge with future practice competency. Utilizing a range of 200 to 800, an average score is 500 with a typical standard deviation of 100 off of that. Given all the adjustments and complexities in this model, a “passing” score does not really exist and, therefore, is not reported.

Physician Assistants – A Rising Profession

The physician assistant, or PA, profession is on the rise. The first physician assistants were certified in 1975 and, today, over 8,000 new physician assistants are certified annually. Certification is done through the NCCPA, a non-profit organization that strives to provide ongoing assessment of active physician assistants to ensure quality. Since its founding in 1974, over 140,000 physician assistants have been certified by the NCCPA and are active in all fifty states and Washington, D.C. Demographically, the median age of all certified PAs is under forty and the majority of PAs are female.

The PA profession is growing rapidly, driven by an increased need for skilled healthcare providers, particularly in the US. In fact, the U.S. BLS estimates that the profession will grow 30% annually through the year 2024. The ARC-PA, or Accreditation Review Commission on Education for the Physician Assistant, estimates that there will be 270 PA schools by 2020 (up from 218 in 2016).

One of the best parts about being a PA (if you are getting ready to take the PANCE exam) is the flexibility it provides. While medical doctors are typically committed to the specialty they trained for during residency, physician assistants can readily move from specialty to specialty and are in high demand in many of them.

Another benefit is that training and exam requirements needed to become a PA, while rigorous, are not as laborious as those that are necessary to become a doctor. Grinding through a bunch of MCAT study books or USMLE prep guides is not required as it is for doctors in training. This makes it easier to become a PA and jump into your career.

PANRE / PANCE Review Books & Guides – Final Thoughts

The physician assistant profession is a noble one and passing the certification (PANCE) and recertification (PANRE) exams is a small, but important, step in one’s journey as a physician assistant. I hope this article helped outline the different PANCE / PANRE study guides and books available and prepare you for your test day. Good luck on your exams and with your career as a PA!

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This information is meant for informational purposes and is not intended to be used for diagnostic or therapeutic purposes.