USMLE Just took USMLE Step 2 CS and worried, please help.

[mdhardwork]

Hey guys, because I have a paranoid personality I have come to find guidance. i would appreciate any feedback.

I just took my CS and feel paranoid that I did not pass.

Here are a few questions I have.

1) Am i even allowed to maket his post? I don't want to get banned from USMLE for life, hehe.
2) I read out of 12 cases, the 2 WORST will be thrown out. Is this true???
3) I heard from a Youtube video that for Cardio exam you only need to auscultate 2 areas of the heart. I did that, but I am no worried that was a mistake and I should have listened to all 4.

Here are some mistakes i feel I committed.

1) I did not connect with a few patients. I feel that they were looking at me weird when I was talking and it made me a bit self conscious.
2) I forgot to ask some social history on a few patients.
3) When I answered challenging questions, I may have not been correct or convincing.
4) My exams were weak, I did not even find any irregular findings. I completely missed the one neuro exam I had to do. Also, I always did a HEENT, neck, and Ext exam, will i lose points for not keeping it focused.
5) My closures, although I tried to keep vague, I sometimes pointed toward a diagnosis. And, I have stumbled a bit when explaining the diagnosis and tests. (But, i speak good english)
6) My patient notes were good, but the diagnosis had very weak pertinent positive and negative findings. On a couple of notes I could barely find anything to support my diagnosis but 1 or 2 lines.

Here is what I feel I did right.

1) I smiled and greeted patients, I used their names and my own. I was respectful and usually said sorry about their issues.
2) I covered the C/C good and ROS good.
3) I always did a cardio and lung exam.

Any input guys? I would like to discuss!

Thanks in advance for reading.

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[mdhardwork]

Crap,

Also, pretend that I asked someone to state their name for a Mental status exam. BUT, i did not ask what day it is or what place it is? THEN, on the note i wrote A lert and oriented x 3... omg... that's falsifying. Am I gonna fail for that????

i also forgot to do a mental status exam when it was necessary.

 

[evilbooyaa]

Questions
1) No. People freak about Step 2 CS on SDN all the time. As long as you don't mention your specific cases/histories, you should be OK.
2) No. 2 are experimental and are not graded. Not your worst 2, necessarily.
3) I would not bother going through the trouble of auscultating more than 2 areas of the heart for CS. I know I didn't.

Mistakes
1) It's alright as long as you were still empathic to something that was bothering them.
2) Shouldn't make a huge difference unless their history would lead you to counseling (cessation of smoking, CAGE questionnaire, etc.)
3)
4) Hard to find irregular findings on most of these patients. I only had 2 patients who 'feigned' symptoms that I reported as abnormal PE. The differential part of my notes were almost entirely history based with only a couple negative PE findings here and there.
You won't be dinged for doing a HEENT, neck, and Ext exam on everybody, but I'm sure that took you some time in every encounter. The only thing I did on every patient was auscultate 2 locations for CV and 4 locations on the back for Resp.
5) You can talk about your differential, and which tests you're going to pick to differentiate. I had a couple patients that I couldn't counsel on multiple diagnoses since I could realistically only think of only one thing that could be causing it.
6) I didn't put 3 diagnoses for 2/3rd of my encounters. I put 1 diagnosis for 2 of them. Every diagnosis had at least 2 lines of support otherwise I didn't put it.

I think minor falsifying like what you mention in your second post isn't going to kill you.

It's nerve-wracking, and I'm going through the same hands-wringing process you are (took it a week ago)