Registration
To register for Step 3 you need to be certified. Even if you haven’t received your ECFMG certificate but as long as you know the date it was issued on you are all good (as that is all the info needed for Step 3 registration). You will find that in OASIS in the medical education credentials tab. One you have all the info you are ready to register. But before you do that you should know that (unlike Step 1 and Step 2) in Step 3 you don’t get to choose the time slot. Rather they automatically assign you 3 months from the time your application is approved. So if you want to take it later on you should register later.
Here’s the link to apply. Please note that Step 3 registration is through FSMB and not ECFMG.
http://www.fsmb.org/usmle_applonline.html
Fill out all your details. Make sure you choose the board as Connecticut and register. No need to do the FCVS thing they ask for at the end.
Besides the online application you also need to print out and fill out a hard copy of the “Certification of Identity Form” available at http://www.fsmb.org/pdf/USMLEStep3_Certification_of_identity.pdf You will have to get this form notarized by a notary public. You can get this done anytime (even before you register online) but make sure the date on it is after you have been issued your certificate. Get the notary public to put in that day’s date and sign in the stamp area. Also make sure he writes his complete date of commission expiry date in the right format (mm/dd/yy). The state was Sindh and county Karachi for me. You guys write whatever is applicable to you. Once this form is filled out mail it to FSMB. It takes roughly 1-2 weeks for your application to be processed
Preparation
I was advised to do Step 3 crush followed by uworld by my seniors. If you have time I would suggest revising Step 2 Kaplans instead of doing Crush which seemed rather useless. I can’t comment on first aid for step 3 but I don’t know of anyone who recommends that. Another book that people have started using is Master the boards by Conrad Fischer. I’ve heard it’s like Step 2 Kaplans but with all the pathophysio junk removed and stuff for CCS added. You can take a look at it and see if you like it. The main thing however is uworld which you need to do well. There are 29 MCQ blocks, 52 online practice CCS cases and 41 printable CCS cases. Crush takes 4-5 days and all of uworld can be managed in 2 weeks. That said a lot of this depends on your motivation too! I would recommened that you do the official online USMLE’s CCS tutorial at http://www.usmle.org/Orientation/2009/menu.html first (to get an idea of the program which takes time to figure out), then do the printable CCS cases and then finally do the CCS online practice cases of uworld. I would recommend that you do the online practice cases twice like do all 52 and then do all 52 again. I think I messed up my CCS a bit because I didn’t practice CCS enough. Lastly keep one to two days for uworld and CCS notes revision.
Exam Day
Try to restrict your caffeine intake on the first day of exam so that you are able to sleep that night and are refreshed for day two of your exam. Step 3 is tougher than all previous steps. The exam is just as hard as uworld if not harder. No one comes out of this exam happy and content. The only good part about it is that the score doesn’t matter as long as you pass.
And for those who still care about getting a 99 to feed your ego (don’t blame you) the cut off for 99 is lower (231 from what I understand) but it’s really hard to get that too. Most of us who got 99s in Step 3 this year (do note that all of us had pretty borderline 99s) had only done Crush (which we all felt was a very superficial and crappy book) and uworld but then we had taken our Step 3 around 3 months after our Step 2 so our knowledge was relatively fresh then. If it’s been longer then depending on how much time you have to study I would suggest either Step 2 Kaplans or Step 3 Conrad Fischer before uworld.
Hope this helps you guys out. If you have any questions let me know. I’m not an expert at Step 3 so don’t think of the above that way but alhamdolillah I managed to get the score I wanted.
All the best.
Take care and Allah hafiz,
Abdullah Khan, M.D.
Class of 2008
Aga Khan University – Medical College
