12/14/2016 CS Exam Results

[psychout222]

Only 2 days away guys. Does anyone else still have their testing permit visible?

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[reefcorgi]

Passed!!!

 

[taavi]

Is there any point in calling ecfmg to ask about results? Assuming my results won't be released today, there won't be time to sit the exam again in time for this season if something were to go wrong :/

 

[prok]

Is there any point in calling ecfmg to ask about results? Assuming my results won't be released today, there won't be time to sit the exam again in time for this season if something were to go wrong :/

Unfortunately there isn't a way to get scores early. Seems like there's quite a few of us in that same situation though. We"ll hopefully get good news.

 

[raddds]

We can't sit for the exam again before this year?

 

[taavi]

We can't sit for the exam again before this year?

Well we can't resit until we get results, and barring them coming out today that prevents us from writing again in time for this match season.

 

[sazerac]

We can't sit for the exam again before this year?

A person would have a CS fail going into the match, but that person would still have time to retake and pass it before they graduate and / or the residency contract starts.

 

[e5gal]

AMG. Chicago 9/23. Score posted today at 11 am ET. Permit link disappeared on Sunday. Passed.

Advice for future CS examinees: practice typing the note in 10 min beforehand. I struggled to finish them in time and then spent too much time needlessly worrying about it for three months afterward.

 

[raddds]

A person would have a CS fail going into the match, but that person would still have time to retake and pass it before they graduate and / or the residency contract starts.

Thanks! I may be out of the loop but is CS necessary to match? I'm kind of terrified I failed and assumed as long as I pass before graduation I'd be fine...

 

[JerryMouse]

Thanks! I may be out of the loop but is CS necessary to match? I'm kind of terrified I failed and assumed as long as I pass before graduation I'd be fine...

Depends on specialty. If you're applying to radiology then you usually don't need it to be ranked.

 

[sazerac]

Thanks! I may be out of the loop but is CS necessary to match? I'm kind of terrified I failed and assumed as long as I pass before graduation I'd be fine...

Sometimes. It depends on the program really. Some specialties seem to want it more than others. I have no idea which specialties are few / some / most wanting it before rank order lists are due.

On the bright side there are definitely people who post on SDN who passed after March and still matched.

 

[Dires]

Passed. ICE had 2 asterisks in the boarderline shaded area. Lol ****

 

[hushhush88]

IMG. Took it in Philly on October 10th. Got my score today at 8:18 AM. Passed!!

 

[jbsayers]

Is anybody else still waiting? Didn't get my score last week or this week. Freaking me out!

 

[DisorderedDoc417]

Fear not, it simply means you have to wait a while longer.

 

[psychout222]

Permit finally gone here.

 

[prok]

Mine is still there. Anyone else in the same situation?

 

[Skmh1221]

Passed!!
Just got the email

 

[sunshine121]

Permit is gone

 

[jbsayers]

Passed! Hallelujah! 3 weeks into the reporting window was torture!

 

[sunshine121]

Got email at 10:48

 

[sunshine121]

Passed!

 

[ptinthehouse]

AMG, exam on 11/2, permit disappeared Monday night (I think due to Christmas), got the email at 10:33am, passed.

 

[drkamikaze]

PASSED! Finally!

 

[prok]

Still nothing yet. This is getting really stressful at this point.

At least it's better than a failure...

 

[JerryMouse]

Hang in there prok!

Permit disappeared this Monday after many sleepless nights. Passed but was probably close to failing (VERY borderline ICE score: 6 x's in borderline performance region, 5 in higher performance region). I would definitely study for this test for at least a week because you might feel a little better during the 2-3 month wait if you had studied. Something I wish I did was to practice writing down as many likely differentials as possible in 40-60 seconds for common complaints (First Aid has a good list). During many cases on the actual exam, I wasted time with aimless questions and failed to ask key questions due to not having a good list of things to rule in/out.

Edit: adding more about my exam performance in case it helps people in the future

Out of 12 cases, I was unable to figure out 4, mainly due to poor questioning from not having a good differential list in mind. For 1 of the 4, I forgot to do memory/attention testing even though that was basically the chief complaint! For these 4 cases, I still put down ~2 differentials each, but they were not well supported and most likely wrong. The remaining 8 cases were fairly easy to figure out and my mistakes were not as bad. My notes were fairly short - 4-5 sentences for each HPI instead of the novels that most people I was testing with were typing up.

I did discuss my thoughts and plan with each SP and afterwards each person had a "challenge question" that they seem to have been instructed to ask. I did NO counseling for drugs and alcohol, even though in 2 of my cases the chief complaint was directly caused by heavy drug or etoh use. However, my CIS score was still highish, so it seems like spending a ton of time on CAGE and drug counseling isn't necessary for passing CIS.

 

[parcus]

Something I wish I did was to practice writing down as many likely differentials as possible in 40-60 seconds for common complaints (First Aid has a good list). During many cases on the actual exam, I wasted time with aimless questions and failed to ask key questions due to not having a good list of things to rule in/out.

I had almost 2 weeks to study for this exam and I feel so bad now that I have taken it. I went through all of FA and did a prep course. I am not sure what else I could have done. As a FMG, I am specially worried because of the 20% fail chances. Not gonna go through my endless list of mistakes, but my mistakes all sound so major to me, Much worse than the usual: "Oh, I forgot to ask a question that might have helped me" , " I farted in front of the patient, 100% sure I failed". Nope, I forgot questions that anyone running the LORQST or whatever mneumonic would have asked. My PE and PE notes were horrible, forgot very BASIC ****, and forgot to document A TON of stuff I did. I also didn't take notes, so left parts of my note blank during the last few encounters because I was too exhausted to remember what the hell the last few patients jobs were.

Unlike all the AMGs, I haven't done an OSCE for years, and got the absolute minimum grade to pass when I did, I am also not empathetic enough with people based on what other have told me and what I feel! I will not say the hypocritical "I failed for sure" (from people who do OSCE all the time and live in the us health care system). I surely feel horrible, but I really don't think I could have prepared significantly better. Makes me feel as if thousands of dollars, step 1, paying my step 2 CK fee, and 3 months of USCE were just wasted! Sorry, just had to vent out somewhere, this exam can't get off my mind, still have 2 months of agonizing before I can tell whether my career in the US is over or not.

 

[JerryMouse]

@parcus I wouldn't agonize about not documenting things like jobs, if they have no relevance to the pt's complaint. The point of the note isn't to document every single bit of info we collected via mnemonics. As long you put down what's relevant, it should be fine.

Forgetting PE maneuvers/questions/tests probably also isn't a dealbreaker if you are able to figure out the cases. From my experience, all of the cases should have an "obvious" diagnosis that can be figured out from the pt story alone or becomes apparent with a bit of targeted questioning. Hypothetical examples: pt w/hearing loss after working somewhere loud, pt w/epigastric pain and melena after taking too many NSAIDs, pt w/lightheadedness who is taking multiple antihypertensives. If you are able to figure out the Dx for many of the cases, you should still have a good chance of passing even if you forgot a bunch of other things. Even if there are cases that you couldn't figure out, the Dx is nearly always something common, so you can still get points by putting down a few common DDx that fit whatever history and PE findings you managed to collect.

 

[1badvette]

So how much of the CS grading is dependent on the SP grading/checklist VS the Note .. can someone still pass the exam with a deficit note and good evaluation from the SP . When i took it , a lot of the things i did/ asked the SP i wasn't able to document in my note , no time to really proof read or check the flow of the note.

Just a heads up ... The 10 min clock starts as soon as the encounter is done .. So the time it takes you to exit room , sit down , log in , adjust and start typing is part of the 10 min .

 

[radddds]

Passed!! So freaking relieved. Took the test 10/25 in Houston. Borderline ICE performance.

AMG. Permit disappeared the first week. Got an Email this morning. Scores came up at 11am EST.

Congrats to everyone else who got good news today!

 

[1badvette]

Passed!! So freaking relieved. Took the test 10/25 in Houston. Borderline ICE performance.

AMG. Permit disappeared the first week. Got an Email this morning. Scores came up at 11am EST.

Congrats to everyone else who got good news today!

Congrats , how was your ICE experience ? did you feel your notes where the reason for lower performance ? Thanks

 

[prok]

Passed today!! So glad this is over. All subscores were far into the higher performance region and nothing near borderline. No idea why it took so long.

Permit disappeared Monday morning (probably because of the holiday). Took test in Houston in September).

 

[radddds]

Congrats , how was your ICE experience ? did you feel your notes where the reason for lower performance ? Thanks

I'm not really sure. My notes definitely weren't great and were not really formulaic by any means. I didn't study for the exam and in retrospect I would have picked up a review book at least a day or two prior to make sure I knew what they were looking for. I went in thinking that since I passed my school's OSCEs I was good to go. I guess I was but it would have saved me a lot of stress...

 

[Usmle Guy]

Took mine in Chicago on 10/26. American IMG here. Second attempt. First attempt failed on ICE because I literally took the exam without ever practicing the patient note (big mistake). Now finally passed it with high performance on every thing. Thank Christ. Got my report at 6 am

Share your 2nd attempt ICE experience please

 

[Usmle Guy]

This was my Step 2 CS experience:

I squeezed in the exam early in the interview season.
I studied for 2 days, including watching their instruction video, going through an old pdf of First Aid for Step 2 CS, and going through USMLE's other official materials for the exam. I mentally rehearsed cases by myself, talking myself through all the steps I would take with the SP within the time limit. I practiced writing CS notes and making a differential and diagnostic workup within the time limit. I had not taken or studied for CK yet, but felt I had a strong foundation of clinical knowledge leftover from M3 year.

The exam itself felt horrible.
I obsessed over so many mistakes after-the-fact, including:
-Running out of time repeatedly with SPs
-Sometimes not having time to "close" or encounter their "challenge questions"
-What pieces of history I forgot
-What PE maneuvers I forgot
-Didn't wash my hands with one SP (thought I would insta-fail due to this)
-Running out of time writing the note (I generally had everything filled out but was still editing)
-Questioning if my differentials were bad
-Didn't ask every SP, "so how is this affecting your life?" (I'm such a jerk)
-Not sure if I used the drape enough for CS standards

In all but one case I knew what the diagnosis probably was, and had a reasonable differential. However, there was one scenario and I wonder in retrospect if this was an experimental scenario -- where I just had no idea what was going on, what the scenario was going for, and how to put the pieces together. The SP had a ton of bizarre exam findings, and was also psychosocially challenging. If the other CS cases weren't that hard and I was messing up anyway, this one was a total fail.

Anyway, since taking the exam, I obsessed over my mistakes and was convinced that failure was likely and a result of my under-preparation for only 2 days.

I passed, and it was fine. It's possible to mess up a lot on this exam.

My advice would be to prepare for about 1 week to feel more reassured that you put in adequate time and effort, and to rehearse cases with another person. I think actual case practice would have helped me respect the time limit better, and I would have felt better about the exam if I hadn't been running out of time constantly. I would also advise taking this beast shortly after CK to provide more of a cushion for your ICE/clinical knowledge. I realized, after preparing for and taking CK afterward, that I would have felt more comfortable with CS with all that I learned/reviewed for CK.

Congrats for passing... How was ur ICE and CIS reports?

 

[Usmle Guy]

Passed but it was close on ICE.

Missed at least 3 diagnoses. Didn't write in medical language (never wrote in medical language on HPI, rewrote exactly what patient said). Heart/Lungs on everyone. + a couple of obvious maneuvers. Never did a correct JVD check (bed never locked at the right degree). Didn't have time for my workup on one case.

My advice is start from the bottom and work up to HPI.

What do u mean by missing 3 diagnosis? Not putting them at all or not in correct order?