My Step 3 experience

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My Step 3 experience

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8 Posts

yuenk
Forum Newbie

Topics: 4
Posts: 7

08/16/07 - 10:52 AM

I thought I should share my experience on this forum as during my preparation for the exam, I found this forum extremely useful and informative.

Step 3 is definitely doable, but if you have the clinical experience (be it if you are trained in the US or abroad), that helps a lot as my feeling is that you probably do not need to go through the books that thoroughly. Moreover, I thought that some of the questions in the exams tested more of common sense rather than what you can get out of the books. And yes, if you can do it just after you have done the Step 2 CK, that will also helps to keep things fresh!
This is my sequence:
Step1 on 12/06/06 and got 78
Step 2 CK on 03/22/07 and got 90
Step 2 CS on 4/12/07
Step 3 on 07/25/07 and 07/26/07 and got 85.

After the Step 2 CK, I took about 2 wks off, and started preparing for Step 3. I read First Aid very quickly and found that the CCS cases there very helpful. I also supplemented that with Crush, and then started doing the Kaplan Qbook. Three wks before the exam, did UW (about 80 to 100 Q's daily) and redid those MCQs that I got wrong and made notes for those questions. Looked through the Blueprints CCS and the UW CCS and tried that on the USMLE CD for practice.

On exam day, I did not like the 1st day as I thought there were many 'grey' questions. Time was also a factor as I had to rush through the questions as each vignette was rather lengthy. 2nd day was better, with more straight-forward questions. Messed up 2 CCS cases, the first case I realized that I forgot to change the location of the patient from office to ER (the patient had pleuritic chest pains which I thought he had a PE) until the end, by which it was then too late! Assumed another patient had a TCA overdose (he was depressed and had ECG changes), and did not do his toxicology screen! You probably need to know the essentials for the CCS and good time management, as I felt that the UW CCS cases gave you too much details, which you probably will not have enough time to request for it even if you can remember all of them!

But the fact of the matter is that I still cleared step 3 despite thinking that I had failed, so NO reason for anyone to believe that they cannot do it. Just practise the MCQs under the time constraints as it is nothing more frustrating than reading the question halfway and you kinda have a good idea of the answer, and before you can do anything, the computer cuts you off because your time is up (I had several questions like that!).

Hope this helps everyone. It is definitely the best feeling when you get this result (compared to your previous steps) as you know that you are done with the USMLEs for good! So go for it!
Good luck and all the best to everyone.

grin