StudntDoc
Forum Newbie
Topics: 6
Posts: 12
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Hi All,
Just wrote my step 2 today. I'm a PGY-4 resident in psychiatry and hated step 1!! This one was a lot more reasonable and applicable to actual practise as a physician. I walked out feeling pretty good about this, as opposed to Step 1 where I only felt confident about 20% of the exam - we'll see in a few weeks if my feeling was accurate :lol: .
The exam is darn long :icon_heh: . I'm a fast exam writer, and I felt the pressure a bit, especially first thing in the morning before my brain had warmed up.
There are long dialogues on many of the questions - my advice is to read the last sentence and the answers first, then read through the question. There is a lot of extraneous material to weed through and this way you are primed for it as you read it. It sped me up ::weird_look:: .
As you've probably read already, there are many questions where there are choices a to t and you have to pick the right diagnosis, test, pathophysiology, drug, etc - usually most of them are clearly wrong and a couple of them are possible at first glance.
There are some pathology questions that kept popping up, but in a very basic way. For example, someone clearly had post-strep GN - they asked what mechanism the person's renal failure occured by - only one matched the immune complex idea. As well, they want to know lots of risk factors (which is most nb for various cancers, which you'd want to address with the patients first)
Now for the good stuff - what was I asked! I won't give too much detail, but I think it's invaluable to know that you are studying the right things and to help focus a few extra study moments around this. If I've given too much detail, I'll leave it to our kind mediator to edit this :wink:
Images - there were a few - kid with sprained ankle remaining sore- xray had tumour the size of a baseball; a couple of chest xrays of ARDS, pneumonia, pleural effusion; blood smears The strange thing about most of these is that they just supported the case that was described and they almost were never actually required in the case/answer.
Psychiatry - :icon_freeze: I loved this, being a psych resident! There was quite a bit. Anxiety disorders (almost all of them); Schizophrenia, brief psychotic episode, depressions (several), mood disorders due to GMC, delirium, dementia, substance abuse d/o's including intoxications (several). Medication side effects including TD, EPS, NMS, serotonin syndrome, lithium toxicity. Borderline PD's, conversion, somatization. In other words, almost all of psychiatry - although I found it pretty reasonable :icon_thumb:
Cardiology - <:help:> never ending amounts - I was asked over & over about murmurs, MI and what can happen after, increase JVP's, heart failure, EKG with ant MI, a fib (again, clear without having the EKG there)
Endocrine - Can you say Diabetes! DKA, HONK, adjusting insulin, PTH, pituitary probs, and quite a few thyroid questions
GI - achalasia, achalasia, achalasia; GI bleeds
Renal - ATN, Nephrotic sydrome, GN, obstructions, big prostates
Pedes - failure to thrive, falling off the growth curve, PANDAS, immunization
Rheum - memorize the first aid quick review - you'll be glad you did
Derm - basal Ca, kiddy rashes, febrile exanthams, treatment of xmas rash
Obs/Gyn - yep... there as well ! Complications of PROM, breast ca
That's all I can remember. Hope this confirms that you're all studying the right things.
Again, this is just a tiny portion of what was examined. The exam is very long and very comprehensive hitting all areas fairly well. It seemed very fair though (admittedly, as a resident, you treat these things all the time, so it's helps)
Good luck to all on your studies!
Hopefully I won't be studying for this one again!
Student Doc
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| meg
Forum Guru
Topics: 62
Posts: 806
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thanks studentdoc,
wish you all the best in the scores.
Meg
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| nyc
Forum Newbie
Topics: 1
Posts: 11
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thank u so much!
good luck but sounds like you don't reaLLY NEED IT.
i took step 2 recently and got a 72. do u think 6 weeks of studying is enough to take it again. all i want is an 82. sounds like low standards but i all i want is family practice anyway. what do u think?
don't be thrown off by my screen name...long story...my sister...
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| Dr_kholioo
Forum Junior
Topics: 9
Posts: 74
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thank u soooooooooooooo much for sharing the experience.
___________________
“We all have great inner power. The power is self-faith. There's really an attitude to winning. You have to see yourself winning before you win. And you have to be hungry. You have to want to conquer.” Arnold Schwarzenegger
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| FAT_GOITER
Forum Senior
Topics: 18
Posts: 110
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Thanks for writting. Don't forget to post your score.
Good Luck
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| StudntDoc
Forum Newbie
Topics: 6
Posts: 12
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Well, been a while since i posted,
But.... I passed!!! Score was 221/90. Yeah. Results took forever to receive. Once USMLE said they were sent, it took about 2 weeks more.
Incidentally, just wrote Step 3 - only real challenge was length. Too long! The CCS was also a bit tough.... mainly getting mind around the idea of writing all the orders, advancing clock, etc. Hopefully these little bits weren't too important.
This site had some really good advice for USMLE 2, but I'd search around for other USMLE 3 sites. This one's a bit lame and people don't write much - there are much more informative & active step 3 sites.
Best of luck to all.
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| son64
Forum Elite
Topics: 34
Posts: 245
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Congrats studentDoc.That is a great score.
Can you tell us how your scores were when you did practice Qs like the kaplan Qbook,Q bank,USMLEWORLD,NMS or whatever you did?
Thanks
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| ampicillin
Forum Newbie
Topics: 4
Posts: 32
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what did you do to prepare? how long did you take to study? what sources did you use? Great score. Hope we can be like you
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| StudntDoc
Forum Newbie
Topics: 6
Posts: 12
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Thanks for the positive feedback....
For prep, I think I seem to have done a lot less than others I've seen on here. I bought First Aid step 2 and read it. I also did the practise USMLE part 2 questions, average around 70%.... that's it.
I found Part 2 very straight forward. As a 4th year resident at the time, it was pretty easy, as I'd had a great deal of first hand experience treating the stuff on the exam (weaknesses in obs/gyn and GI). If you understand your clerkship & why your doing what you are doing, it goes a long way - much further than memorizing minutia.
Use good exam strategies - don't waste time reading a lengthy question when the final question has little to do with the history - start with the last sentence and answers to see what you need to pull out.
Search the web for what people had for old questions - not that finding a particular choice question will show up on the exam. Instead, it will calm your nerves a bit and let you know some of the things they think are important. As in my initial post, they were looking for basic common medicine, looking to see if you're going to be safe. Some focus on "easily examinable" material - primary & secondary menorrhea, some genetics, what's the diagnosis, what test should be ordered, etc.
Hope this helps....
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