Hello everyone!
First time typing my experience here so please be patient with me. A little about myself - an IMG, graduated med school in 2018 and took all my boards along the way (Step 1, 2 CK, 2 CS and 3). I just passed step 3 June 2021. While studying for step 3, SDN helped me SO SO SO much! I came here often to read others' experiences so I figured I can give back to future students who will be taking step 3
Currently: working as an Interdisciplinary Group Coordinator at a hospice agency as I worked on studying and taking my boards.
Next: Residency applications and prep
My experience on step 3:
Study materials: UWorld Qbank, bio stats review and the CCS interactive cases (did not really help), master the boards, and ccscases.com
Uworld was unitimed and tutor mode for about 20 blocks (I did time myself on each question and my goal was to answer in 60 secs or less). Then did only subject-based incorrect based on the uworld statistics. I did about 75% of UWorld overall.
Day 1: Brutal. I was calling out to God with every other question. I was marking at least 20 questions in each block. Like everyone says, bio stats is heavily emphasized since I had a couple of questions in each block. However, the questions are basic stats: sensitivity, specificity, likelihood ratio. Master the boards helped me in this but I also repeatedly made my own notes until I understood the concepts. I also had a lot of article based questions - 1 in most blocks and 2 in a couple of blocks - I marked these and came back to them at the end so I do not waste time and run out of time to obtain easy points on other mcqs. I did not read the articles, instead, jumped to the questions to look for the answers and it worked for me personally. Three step pharmacy questions asking mechanism of action of drugs - read the prompt, ID the disease, ID the medication required for treatment, ID the mechanism of action. I had about 1-2 per block but the medications were commonly used in practice in the US today - beta agonist, antibacterial agents, antihypertensive medications. I did finish each block several minutes early so I was able to review a couple of my marked questions. However, based on my practice experience in uworld, changing my answers has never been in my favor so I refrained from acting on that impulse
Six days in between the two days: Practiced ccscases.com cases - went through about half of them, esp the 10 minute cases to practice optimal time management
Day 2: Easier but I was going through an asthma exacerbation at the time so I feel like my focus was not all there. Regardless, I feel the question stems were a little bit more straightforward and to the point. I had a couple of drug interaction/allergy questions that were a little tricky.
CCS cases go fast! One thing I would suggest is READ THE HPI AND PE VERY CAREFULLY! I had one case where I could not make the patient feel better and her symptoms were not stabilizing. I decided to go back and read the PE in detail again and realized there was one small four letter line on the right end of the page that gave away the diagnosis and treatment. Luckily I still had a minute before the 2 min screen to add the treatment. I did not take too many breaks because once I did a couple of cases, I got a little more comfortable with the pace and timing. I mostly received feedback stating "the patient hopes this treatment will help" and I managed not to kill any patients on the software. I did, however, make one patient worse and was unable to figure what I could do to make them feel better. Only about 3 cases ended early for me and the rest I was able to get treatments and counseling in prior to the case timing out.
Know when to keep your patient in the ER, transfer them to the floor or send them home! ccscases.com is a really good source as the software gives you feedback on where you went wrong and where you were right. I eventually started to see a pattern in my weakness after doing so many cases. I feel the actual exam is not testing whether you know EVERYTHING. It tests if you can MANAGE a patient, stabilize them and provide the necessary treatment for their disease process. Not if you can cure them. It is looking for in-the-moment-what-would-you-do type of care for the patient. Sort of a step up from step 2 CS. MANAGEMENT/STABILIZATION more than CURE. Can you at least start the basic lab work, tests, imaging and treatment and at least BEGIN to move in the right direction to helping your patients?
Some topics from my day 1/day 2 even though most of it seems like a blur - diabetes (Type 1 AND Type 2) - KNOW THEM IN AND OUT, HTN, nephrotic syndrome, acute thyroiditis, autoimmune diseases such as SLE/RA/Ankylosing spondylitis/Lyme disease, rabies vaccination protocol, COPD, asthma exacerbation, neonatal jaundice, preeclampsia/eclampsia, gallstone/kidney stone protocols, epiglottis, croup - not sure how much this will help because the topics on these exams are so unpredictable and can come from anywhere and everywhere but uworld is a one of the best sources I've used on ALL of my step exams
First time typing my experience here so please be patient with me. A little about myself - an IMG, graduated med school in 2018 and took all my boards along the way (Step 1, 2 CK, 2 CS and 3). I just passed step 3 June 2021. While studying for step 3, SDN helped me SO SO SO much! I came here often to read others' experiences so I figured I can give back to future students who will be taking step 3
Currently: working as an Interdisciplinary Group Coordinator at a hospice agency as I worked on studying and taking my boards.
Next: Residency applications and prep
My experience on step 3:
Study materials: UWorld Qbank, bio stats review and the CCS interactive cases (did not really help), master the boards, and ccscases.com
Uworld was unitimed and tutor mode for about 20 blocks (I did time myself on each question and my goal was to answer in 60 secs or less). Then did only subject-based incorrect based on the uworld statistics. I did about 75% of UWorld overall.
Day 1: Brutal. I was calling out to God with every other question. I was marking at least 20 questions in each block. Like everyone says, bio stats is heavily emphasized since I had a couple of questions in each block. However, the questions are basic stats: sensitivity, specificity, likelihood ratio. Master the boards helped me in this but I also repeatedly made my own notes until I understood the concepts. I also had a lot of article based questions - 1 in most blocks and 2 in a couple of blocks - I marked these and came back to them at the end so I do not waste time and run out of time to obtain easy points on other mcqs. I did not read the articles, instead, jumped to the questions to look for the answers and it worked for me personally. Three step pharmacy questions asking mechanism of action of drugs - read the prompt, ID the disease, ID the medication required for treatment, ID the mechanism of action. I had about 1-2 per block but the medications were commonly used in practice in the US today - beta agonist, antibacterial agents, antihypertensive medications. I did finish each block several minutes early so I was able to review a couple of my marked questions. However, based on my practice experience in uworld, changing my answers has never been in my favor so I refrained from acting on that impulse
Six days in between the two days: Practiced ccscases.com cases - went through about half of them, esp the 10 minute cases to practice optimal time management
Day 2: Easier but I was going through an asthma exacerbation at the time so I feel like my focus was not all there. Regardless, I feel the question stems were a little bit more straightforward and to the point. I had a couple of drug interaction/allergy questions that were a little tricky.
CCS cases go fast! One thing I would suggest is READ THE HPI AND PE VERY CAREFULLY! I had one case where I could not make the patient feel better and her symptoms were not stabilizing. I decided to go back and read the PE in detail again and realized there was one small four letter line on the right end of the page that gave away the diagnosis and treatment. Luckily I still had a minute before the 2 min screen to add the treatment. I did not take too many breaks because once I did a couple of cases, I got a little more comfortable with the pace and timing. I mostly received feedback stating "the patient hopes this treatment will help" and I managed not to kill any patients on the software. I did, however, make one patient worse and was unable to figure what I could do to make them feel better. Only about 3 cases ended early for me and the rest I was able to get treatments and counseling in prior to the case timing out.
Know when to keep your patient in the ER, transfer them to the floor or send them home! ccscases.com is a really good source as the software gives you feedback on where you went wrong and where you were right. I eventually started to see a pattern in my weakness after doing so many cases. I feel the actual exam is not testing whether you know EVERYTHING. It tests if you can MANAGE a patient, stabilize them and provide the necessary treatment for their disease process. Not if you can cure them. It is looking for in-the-moment-what-would-you-do type of care for the patient. Sort of a step up from step 2 CS. MANAGEMENT/STABILIZATION more than CURE. Can you at least start the basic lab work, tests, imaging and treatment and at least BEGIN to move in the right direction to helping your patients?
Some topics from my day 1/day 2 even though most of it seems like a blur - diabetes (Type 1 AND Type 2) - KNOW THEM IN AND OUT, HTN, nephrotic syndrome, acute thyroiditis, autoimmune diseases such as SLE/RA/Ankylosing spondylitis/Lyme disease, rabies vaccination protocol, COPD, asthma exacerbation, neonatal jaundice, preeclampsia/eclampsia, gallstone/kidney stone protocols, epiglottis, croup - not sure how much this will help because the topics on these exams are so unpredictable and can come from anywhere and everywhere but uworld is a one of the best sources I've used on ALL of my step exams
