We are writing this to help you pass your Clinical Skills exam in a more organized and stress free way. During the exam, we get stressed out and tend to leave out many questions in the history. Thus, we have come up with a mnemonic for history taking. If you follow this mnemonic you will easily cover about 70 to 80% of the important points in history taking and the remaining 20% of questions will come with practice.
FAQs
Should I give my steps during my MBBS?
This is a very personalized decision. If you think that you can get a good score then sure, go ahead. Just remember you have only one chance to give your steps and you cannot give it again to improve your score. Only time you can give it is when you fail or after 7 years as the results are valid for 7 years.
USMLE STEP 2
The subjects tested in step 2 are
n Medicine (Most important)
n Pediatrics
n Obstetrics and Gynecology
n Surgery
n Psychiatry
Step 2 is an exam in which the grades of Dow/Smc people generally fall as compared to step 1. I would recommend that you should attempt step 2 within 3-4 months of step 1 because a lot of background knowledge from Step 1 will still be fresh in your mind and help you in step 2.The syllabus is much shorter than Step 1 and takes less time. Like in step 1, studying smartly is the key. Beware of mistakes in Kaplan as there are a lot of minor mistakes here and there so do not take in every word of Kaplan blindly. If you suspect an obvious mistake then just double check it from another book.
What to study?
n Only Kaplan Series
n UWorld Mcqs
That’s it!!! You do not have to study anything else. I do not recommend even the DVD’s because the ones available are the old ones (2001) and a lot of recommendations have changed since then. If you really want to do DVDs then you can do Cardiology and Gynecology. I do not recommend First Aid and Kaplan Qbank for Step 2.
How to study?
As for Step 1, three reads of Kaplan is more than enough. For those who dare, two reads may also be sufficient. This time however I suggest you solve U World with the first read. Practicing UWorld with the first read will let you understand the pattern and identify high yield topics. This way when you give your second and third reads you will know what to focus on. Everyone gets whipped in U World in Step 2 so don’t worry about that. As I said before, use it as a learning tool and not for evaluation.
Dr Faraz Khan Luni,
Step 1 99 (266)
Step 2 99 (263)
Graduate of Dow Medical College,2008
Feedback by DMC Alumni
Javeria Umar
Class of 2009
Usmle Step 2- 99:-Kaplan Books, Crush the board Step 2 and USMLE world. I don’t recommend MTB (most of the people do)
Maliha Azmi
Class of 2009
Usmle Step 2- 99:-Kaplan notes and Uworld….period…That’s enough for a decent 99 if you study smart!
I am writing this to guide my juniors so they don’t face the problems that we faced during the preparations for our steps. Remember that studying for USMLE is a very customized and there is no fixed formula.
I am just mentioning my method and you may adjust it as you feel suitable
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.
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
