Dear NBOME

[Hernandez]

Your questions are atrocious. your pictures suck. your grammar sucks worse than my spelling, and who the hell makes a diagnosis with less than 50 words? Don't preach history, history, history and then not give me any and force me to make assumptions which may not be valid for your question.

Please don't give me a vignette and then ask me "which is the most appropriate antibiotic" and then not list any of the first 2 lines as listed by the IDSA for the given disease. I realize you want me to give the drug which will cover the most common bug, but hell, I can give you several journal articles which show that you can't distinguish between the 2 most common bugs for this process by history alone.

Why are you asking me when peer-review is appropriate? I don't recall that being a mandated part of my curricula.

How the hell am I suppose to know what hte exceptions are to the omnibus bill of way the hell back when, do you mandate that I learn that? Then don't ask it.

Who the **** thought it was a good idea to ask how to properly bill for OMT. I don't even know what the hell a modifier is.

that is all...

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[burs0028]

I took step III on Friday...I wholeheartedly agree with above poster. Xrays where you can't identify even what part of the body you're supposed to be looking at...random billing questions that would be totally clinic dependent--and yes, vinettes long enough to let you know the drug of choice (without any doubt) and then listing 3 drugs you've never heard of and 2 that you know are inappropriate for that disease...

Oh, and on the NBOME website where it says "3 booklets each for steps I, II, & III" doesn't that mean you should have sent me 3 DIFFERENT books? Or did you think that I'd feel better about myself doing each question 3 times?!?
(disclaimer: I swear that's how it was worded on the website, but when I went to check at the time of this posting nbome.org didn't exist...)

If I failed this so called examination of my ability to practice medicine I am royally screwed. It was one of those guess what I'm thinking/guess which no-longer-used medicine I like to prescribe/guess PERIOD tests that studying more for doesn't really help. I had little OMM at all tons of bread and butter medicine, peds, and OB. Preparing to re-take is gonna suck big time cause it's gonna at least a 2 months of dedicated study everynight after long days on the wards...{open mouth...insert muzzle...depress trigger for instant relief}

I fell in love with the DO philosophy as did so many others, but...well...maybe someone out there is ambitious and skilled enough to step up and give us the leadership we need to purge out the old anecdotal-based-medicine practioners out of the test-writing & policy-making jobs...

Long live "Put DOs on TV!!!" greatest waste of paper...ever...

Thx for letting me vent...good luck on step !!!...bring a stress ball...

 

[dr_almondjoy_do]

i was part of the national glitch that left me not able to even take it on Nov. 7.

I was told this was rare, but the first time i sat for step 2, the images didn't show up and i had to sit for it again because of that I was told to answer the best i could without images, and i laughed so hard... i asked to be rescheduled. second time around wasn't so bad.

i'm now scheduled to take the exam next week. wish me luck!

can't wait until it's over!

 

[novado]

I just took it yesterday. I could not agree more. I think it was worse than Step 2 and 1. They may as well ask: 24 yo male with diffuse abdominal pain presents to the ER. Vitals signs: (all normal) Physical exam reveals rebound tenderness and decreased bowel sounds. The patient is thinking about the letters a,b,c,d, or e. Which of these letters is he thinking about? or The patient has how many body piercings? Oh wait, you need to read the JAOA to figure that one out.

 

[Yosh]

Agreed that the exam was quite poorly written and frustrating...

In a more positive light...score really doesn't matter, and after III, you are done with COMLEX....