Board certification is now virtually mandatory in the United States. Failure to achieve it is highly frustrating and sometimes worse. Despite years of accomplishment, academic achievement, and excellence on many levels, without Board certification physician credentials are often incomplete; opportunity is sometimes limited, career advancement sometimes constrained, and a life worked for so long and hard sometimes less than it should be.

Boards are in some ways beneficial. They take us back to our roots as students--lovers of natural science, knowledge, and understanding. They reacquaint us with the rigors and discipline of scientific training and remind us of earlier triumphs, such as organic chemistry and the rest, when we were necessarily rigid, disciplined, focused, and scheduled--in many ways at our best. They remind us that our specialty is rooted in science and suggest the need for scientific rigor, intensive review and continuing education. Further, there is something inherently satisfying and meaningful about passing Boards and becoming a "consultant". It is a triumph beyond money or material things, a sign of excellence, the capstone to a fine academic career. Passing Boards is an academic equivalent of great athletic success: Vince Lombadia stated: "I truly believe that a person's finest hour is when they have worked their heart out for a good cause and lie exhausted on the battlefield, victorious".

Board examinations do have a role in our education and society, but too often they are arbitrary, capricious, and even punitive exercises for which physicians receive little preparation when they should, during residency. (There are countless tales of unfairness and sometimes it seems the self-annointed rulers and bureaucrats who run these Boards are out of touch and out of control.)

The idea of a consultant is a worthy one; the ways and means this is measured, is too often unworthy. Is this a war? Clearly not, but it sure seems like one at times-a physician resembling a soldier in the field. It's often a lonely process requiring discipline, faith, and sacrifice. Defeat sometimes seems random and victory gratifying but costly. Some emerge unscathed while others are seriously harmed; By the end, everyone from the foot soldier to the field general, just wants to go home.

We're not philosophers nor rabble-rousers but physicians. We will do what is reasonably asked of us, and overcome any obstacle just as we always have-including Boards.

The goal of Dr. Jensen Board PREP is to help deserving doctors beat the beast of Boards and actually derive positive benefit from it-beyond a piece of paper on the wall. Relentless focus upon the requirements of these examinations is the key to proper preparation and to using this experience to become a better doctor. This is best achieved through effective use of integrated and focused home study materials and diligent effort at courses designed to simulate the actual examinations.

Our motto rings true, just as it did when promulgated 25 hundred years ago by a philosopher and general, Sun Tsu: "Victorious warriors win first, then go to war. Defeated warriors go to war first, then seek to win." The mission of Dr. Jensen Board PREP is to help physicians beat Boards through proper, focused preparation before the battle is fought.

When the dust clears, "I still don't know what to tell you about this war, the undertakers are winning it. The old men talk of the need of it, the generals of the glory of it, and the soldiers just want to go home." After so many years and so much sacrifice, it's time to finally go home. We can help you do it, do it in a positive and productive way, just as we have so many others. In that spirit, "Onward to Victory."