⚠️ Quick note: Sorry for the audio quality in this episode — we’ve been having tremendous recording issues! Thanks for sticking with us. 💜
Just like it’s when—not if—you’ll treat someone with cancer,
it’s when you’ll hit bumps in your exam prep, not if.
In this episode, I share why now, not later, is the best time to begin studying for your Oncology Specialty Certification Exam. From personal experience (trismus + a catastrophic winter storm the week before my own exam 😵💫), I know how unpredictable life can get—and why early prep is your best insurance.
You’ll hear:
- Why waiting to study usually backfires
- What real-life chaos taught me about exam prep
- How Oncology Specialist Bootcamp helps you stay on track without burning out
Ready to pass your exam without putting the rest of your life on hold?
Join Oncology Specialist Bootcamp → https://TheOncoPT.com/bootcamp
More episodes on your oncology specialty certification journey:
Ep. 336 – From Good to Great: How to Stand Out & Make an Impact in OncoPT
Ep. 338 – Applying for the Oncology Specialty Certification Exam? Here’s Everything You Need to Know
Ep. 340 – Case Report? More like Survival Guide for OncoPTs!
Want to watch the episode instead?
Watch this week’s episode of TheOncoPT Podcast on our YouTube channel!
Transcript
Dr. Elise K. Cantu (00:19)
Hey, Onco PT and welcome to this episode of the Onco PT podcast. Now I have to be upfront with you. ⁓ This is not the first time I’ve tried to record this episode. This is actually the third time I’ve tried to record this episode. And if that is not fitting for the story, the timeline of events that I’m going to share with you, that leads into today’s episode topic way too well. It’s uncanny.
how this all worked out, but I think it just goes to illustrate my point a little more. So let me explain. Last week is when I tried to record this podcast episode. I was going to have everything up early ahead of schedule so that this Tuesday, when it was time for the episode to go out, everything was going to be smooth sailing. Well, unfortunately, the universe had a little different plan for me. ⁓ Last week was one of the more
Bonkers weeks that I’ve had in a really long time started off Monday. I actually attended one of the local redistricting Redistricting hearings, excuse me that are going on here in Texas ⁓ Was planning on testifying against the redistricting like I showed up in my Barbie pink blazer I was like, let’s let’s frickin go right? did not get to unfortunately for a couple different reasons number one there were so many people who were there and showed up it was
Honestly, amazing. was really encouraging, especially in light of what is happening right now in the world to see so many people who are out there supporting this effort to fight against the redistricting. Like it was awesome. It was really great. It was very uplifting. That said, it was also extremely frustrating and we didn’t end the hearing actually until 1130 at night, which meant that I got home around midnight and it just kind of set the stage. I feel like for the rest of the week, ⁓ my
car battery died at one point and that was such a pain. Of course, I was trying to go and see a patient at that point. ⁓ And then this, I swear to God, this is all true. I’m not making any of this up. So I went and had my car battery replaced. The next morning, my car also would not start. Come to find out it was a bad battery. I didn’t even think about cars having bad batteries. Well, guess what? They can because mine did. My car’s working great now.
She purrs like a charm. No worries there whatsoever. But it was just a series of these inconveniences, annoyances, just that completely derailed my whole week and frankly are kind of continuing into this week if I’m being completely transparent. Today’s much better. sometimes life is like that. Life is going…
to life. And it’s not always in the way in which you want it to. It’s not always in the timeframe in which you wanted to. But that’s how it is sometimes. And we just have to roll with the punches and try to pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and keep moving forward. Because the reality of the situation is that this is going to happen. Things are going to happen sometimes that are completely
outside of your control or that you can only do so much to control and then it’s out of your hands at this point. And this is the perfect time to talk about this because it is firmly August. School is just around the corner if it hasn’t already started in your neck of the woods. And while you may be focusing on these back to school, it’s almost fall. It’s listen, it’s still gonna be summer here in Texas for a hot minute, but it’s.
almost fall and that changing of the seasons I feel like just brings an excitement, a renewal that I’m really looking forward to. But at the same time, there’s still a lot of stuff to get done. I still have a lot of things that I’m trying to wrap up before school starts, before the semester picks back up, and you know, just kind of before life continues on. And while you may be thinking of school starting, maybe fall vibes are just around the corner or maybe even already starting to dream of those
Halloween decorations and your pumpkin spice lattes, your oncology specialist certification exam is probably the last thing on your mind with all of these things happening. you know, God forbid the car battery dying or whatever else might be happening. However.
is truly the perfect time to start studying. And here’s why. As I mentioned before, life is going to life. Life is going to happen no matter what and on its own schedule. And it frankly doesn’t have any regard for your plans or your desired timeline. And so the sooner that you start preparing for this exam, the sooner that you’re going to be ready, or at least the more ready you are going to be when the unexpected shows up.
Let me give you another example as if the last week of my life was not enough of an example at this point. Let’s talk about specifically preparing for your oncology specialty certification exam. Rewind with me back to 2020 and 2021. Now I know that you already have a certain connotation, a certain visceral response to 2020, but stick with me here. Summer of 2020 was wild, of course, for the obvious reasons. But
It was also wild for me because my husband and I both quit our corporate PT jobs that summer. My husband then immediately opened up his private practice and then I worked as a medical editor in the interim because my former job had an extremely strict non-compete clause. I knew that I was going to sit for the 2021 specialty certification exam. Over that summer,
I wrote my case report, had it submitted for that September 30th deadline, heard back ⁓ fairly quickly on my case report status. And once that was good to go, it was time to actually dive into the studying. So ⁓ that process was not without its bumps. ⁓ As you’ve probably heard on the podcast, I will also link in the show notes where you can hear a little bit more about my own case report experience.
But let’s focus on the actual exam prep. So over the rest of the fall, I studied weekly for my exam. And early on, I found that I was definitely studying the wrong kind of material. was getting super in the weeds about, for example, like breast cancer, the diagnosis itself, right? What are the statistics for, you know, who gets what kind of breast cancer and how many people are diagnosed at this stage versus this stage, which
I’m gonna let you in on a little secret here. That’s not actually important for the exam. That is not the focus of the exam. But after a couple months of that, I feel like I really found my stride in November of 2020. So going through November of 2020, I decreased the amount of studying I did intentionally over the holidays, finishing up 2020. And then once 2021, the new year hit,
I then picked up with more intensive studying and then my exam, think was, I didn’t even look up the date. I think it was like first part of March. I should know this because there’s a couple of in here, regardless of when it was. I was entering that last stretch of, okay, it’s time to really buckle down, try to make it really serious and focus in on what’s most important when preparing for this exam. So we’re marching towards February.
I am feeling good, last minute study and preparation. But at the same time, as I’m feeling good, as I’m doing these things, I was also really counting on having those last few weeks before my exam to really study. You know, like I was serious, I was getting more serious, but I was really counting on having those last few weeks to finalize my preparation. Generally, I was on track, I thought I had everything under control. Until…
one morning, I woke up and I, what I would do is in like most mornings, I would get up early, I would go have some breakfast and then I would come into my office here and I would start studying for usually like an hour, maybe two before I actually started my work.
get up, roll out of bed and head out to the kitchen to have my typical ⁓ bowl of cereal at that point. So pour my cereal, my milk, grab my spoon, scoop up a big spoonful of cereal. And then I hear this big clang when my spoon hit my teeth, which is a very weird experience for me. So it was like, okay, that’s kind of weird. Tried it again and I could not fit the
Not just the heaping spoonful of cereal. I couldn’t actually fit the spoon in between my teeth.
I had developed trismus almost overnight. Like I had some TMJ issues that were definitely building up to this point. It’s not like I woke up truly one day, like as PT, know this, but over the months and weeks of very intensive studying and probably the terrible posture I had working at a desk all the time, both for studying and for this new job I was doing, I had developed TMJ issues.
to where I then had to start going to physical therapy so that I could open my mouth enough to actually put food inside of my mouth. Completely serious. This is not a joke. This is not an exaggeration. I literally went back through my calendar that I kept in 2020 and 2021 and went and saw these PT visits that I had to schedule and block off on my calendar. So, okay, I’m getting down
final weeks before the exam, now I have to start going to physical therapy to help this because I literally could not eat, which was a big problem. So this is happening. I was like, okay, we’re going to adjust. We’re going to just make a little pivot and get right back into our plan. Okay. I have a couple hours in the mornings, a week that I have to go to physical therapy. Otherwise it’s going to be okay.
So I thought I was able to get back on the train, get the train back on the tracks. Just a brief derailment here because I had a plan. I had a plan. And then the Texas snowpocalypse of 2021.
Now, if you haven’t heard, if you didn’t know, in February of 2021, there was a huge snow and ice storm that hit basically the entire state of Texas. It was horrible. And we were really lucky. I genuinely, we were so lucky. We had power the whole time. Our house was decently warm. We were able to stay home and not have to go out into the snow and ice, which again, y’all like.
Texans don’t know how to drive in it anyways, but the amount of snow and ice was catastrophic. It was unseen. And there were many people in our area even who lost power. I had students who it was 45 degrees inside of their house and could not like, could not get electricity to even turn the heat on. It was horrible. It was a horrible situation. And like I said, we got really, really lucky out of that.
And all of this happened the week before my specialty certification exam.
Now, I could have panicked. I could have just thrown my hands up and said, oh my God, like, this is hopeless. It’s not meant to be. Just basically like screw it until next year or whenever. But I didn’t because I had already built the foundation over those months of studying that I did that even though I had quite a few disruptions towards the very end of my studying process,
Even with those disruptions, I was still able to implement my plan moving forward and to be able to walk into my exam the week after the snowpocalypse as confident as possible to ultimately sit down, take that exam, pass it at the end of the day, and then become a board certified clinical specialist. This is why starting now is such a good idea. You should
count on things happening over the next year that are going to derail you a little bit. This is one of those, I don’t believe it’s if, I believe it’s when, because that’s just how life is. And so by starting now, you are giving yourself the time to implement your plan, to build your foundation so that you can absorb, reflect, and pivot
when life is going to throw you curve balls. Again, not if, but when. I get my friend that you are busy, right? It’s summer or it’s the end of summer and you are trying to get back to the things, know, maybe you took a little vacation and now you’re getting back into the swing of things. Maybe you’re trying to squeeze in some last minute stuff before the school year starts, any of these things. On top of that, you’re still treating your patients. You are
trying to stay on top of your notes. You are juggling all the other things that you have to do as part of being a physical therapist and a human and maybe trying to remember, me, to eat lunch some days. But delaying your start, delaying the start to your specialty certification exam prep is not going to make you more prepared, right? There might be this idea floating in your head of, I just have to get through this next few.
weeks, which is going to turn into the next few months, and then things will calm down and then I’ll be ready to really devote time to, you know, my studying. Spoiler alert, my friend, that is not going to happen. Genuinely, the school year is going to start. You’re going to get sucked up in all kinds of cool, awesome things that come with fall. Like fall is amazing. I love fall, but there’s going to be things that happen that are going to steal away your time. If you don’t have a plan.
and set that foundation so that you can walk into your exam in February or March, whenever it is in 2026 and feel really, really good about it. By waiting, you are only going to increase your stress later on. But if you start now, you’re going to have that foundation you can come back on.
I think of this concept like compound interest. Now stick with me. This is not a financial podcast. This is not a math podcast. I’m not going to ask you to do any kind of math on this podcast. Just sit with this, this metaphor with me for now. I view this experience as compound interest, compound interest, as you may or may not know, which if you don’t know, like maybe pick up a financial book, but on your own time, again, this is not a financial podcast.
we see that your money is occurring interest on top of itself daily or whatever that interval is. Right. And so it allows you to accumulate much more ⁓ growth over time compared to a simple interest kind of situation. And what in what you can see, if you pick up any financial book, they usually will talk you through, you know, like, here’s what happens if you were to do simple interest and put this much money in. But look how much more money
You grow over time with compound interest. Starting now is like getting compound interest on steroids for your board certification exam prep process. By starting now, when you get derailed later this year or even into next year because life is going to happen, you are going to have that foundation that you have already started on.
to then fall back upon, to know that, OK, I have been preparing for this. I know this information. It’s OK if I get a little off track. I know that I can get back on track. Now, when we say start now, that doesn’t mean that you need to start studying for seven hours a day every single day from now until February. Not at all what we’re saying here. Starting now means small, doable progress that is going to build your confidence and your content knowledge.
And this is exactly why I created oncology specialist bootcamp. Because you don’t need to try to figure this all out on your own. You certainly could. It’s been done before. I did it. I would not recommend it because I mentioned earlier in this episode, it took me months to get through the noise of what I thought was important to where I really understood what I was doing, what I was
reading or consuming in the literature to be able to apply to my patients in my practice, right? Oncology specialist bootcamp is your roadmap to get you through the endless reading list or that huge stack of textbooks that you think you might need, but maybe don’t know if you should actually buy oncology specialist bootcamp provides the flexible plan that you can actually follow.
with bite sized lessons that you can easily integrate into your own schedule. Whatever that looks like, right in between school drop off, getting to the hospital, for example, working the full shift, also getting all of those notes done. yeah. And the odd or maybe not so odd call to insurance to do and then picking up the kids and going to karate and soccer practice afterwards. Right. Insert whatever that looks like for you here.
and real life strategies that are going to frankly reflect the real life chaos of what it’s like to actually work with our very dynamic and wonderful patient population. Oncology specialist bootcamp is not just a study program. It is a study lifeline for busy physical therapists such as yourself who are ambitious and who want to crush this exam without burning out in the process.
You can pass this exam and still take care of your life, your patients, and yourself. But you have to start now, not someday. Enrollment is now open for oncology specialist bootcamp, and your future self is going to thank you for taking action early. When it is now February or March and your exam is just around the corner, you are going to thank yourself.
for starting now and not waiting until, God forbid, January or even November to start studying. Now, I do have to let you know, this is more of a time-sensitive offer. If you are listening to this live or in real time as this episode drops, I have a special something for you. We are currently undergoing a major overhaul of oncology specialist bootcamp, bigger and better than ever.
And so what I’m doing from now until August 18th of 2025, if you enroll in oncology specialist bootcamp, I will honor the old pricing for oncology specialist bootcamp. I’m letting you know on August 18th, that price is going up to reflect the increased hours and the increased CEUs that we will be submitting for oncology specialist bootcamp. But you can get oncology specialist bootcamp today.
for the old price and when that new material drops on August 18th, you will get all of that new stuff. No extra charge for the same price as what people are paying right now. So if you want to take advantage of a proven plan that is going to help you prepare effectively for your specialty certification exam and help you level up to become
the best Onco PT that you can be for your patients. Now is the time to do it. Do not delay. That new price is going to launch on August 18th. You’ll still get a course, all of the wonderful new content if you enroll after that. But if you want to save a couple bucks in the process, enroll now before August 18th. And I will include that link in the show notes. You can also find that at theoncopt.com slash bootcamp. And I cannot wait to see you inside.
So head to the link in the show notes or at that link I just mentioned, the oncopT.com slash bootcamp. And I cannot wait to see you inside oncology specialist bootcamp. You’ve got this my friend. And oncology specialist bootcamp has your back along the way. Until next time, this is Elise with the OncopT. And remember, you are exactly the physical therapist that your patients with cancer need. So let’s get to work.