How to go about Step 2?

[Kboy2]

Hello everyone

So I am about to embark on my clinical training. If there is one thing Step 1 taught me, its to start early and start hard. I want to do that with Step 2, but after reading through the experiences thread I am a little confused, as there seems to be a lack of a 'holy trinity', or 'bible' so to speak for Step 2. Step 1 had its FA/Pathoma/UW = success, but I cant seem to find a similar pattern for Step 2, other than UW being useful.

Thus far, I picked up a copy of FA Step 2 CS and CK, as well as Step 2 Secrets. Will buy a UW sub as well. Are these sufficient to get a solid score on Step 2 or are there some other resources I should look at?

Thanks!

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[RingTailedDoc]

FA is great for CS and all you need. If you are an AMG and used to having standardized patient exams, this book is all you need to study. Read through it once over the course of a week or so, and practice 2 or 3 cases with notes just to get the timing down. I think one of the main reasons people fail CS is because they don't follow the USMLE's data gathering or format rules (ex: you need to ask about and document meds, allergies, social hx, family hx for every patient even if it doesn't seem relevant) so make sure you get that down. Otherwise, as long as you have good clinical skills and can generate a decent differential, that will do the trick.

CK is a bit different. There's no gold standard. UWorld is a must. That's basically all I used x 2, plus Secrets in the last week and one NBME, and scored 270+. Lots of people around here use MTB2 for the IM sections and MTB3 for the other topics. I think FA would be a fine substitute for these, because bottom line is there is no one perfect book and they all have advantages/disadvantages. Just focus on getting used to reading and processing the questions quickly which I think is best achieved with Uworld. Check out the Step 2 CK scores/experiences thread if you want more advice and specific study plans.

 

[Apoplexy__]

Hello everyone

So I am about to embark on my clinical training. If there is one thing Step 1 taught me, its to start early and start hard. I want to do that with Step 2, but after reading through the experiences thread I am a little confused, as there seems to be a lack of a 'holy trinity', or 'bible' so to speak for Step 2. Step 1 had its FA/Pathoma/UW = success, but I cant seem to find a similar pattern for Step 2, other than UW being useful.

Thus far, I picked up a copy of FA Step 2 CS and CK, as well as Step 2 Secrets. Will buy a UW sub as well. Are these sufficient to get a solid score on Step 2 or are there some other resources I should look at?

Thanks!

Another key thing is to do well on the shelfs as you go along. I started MS3 about 5 months ago and was thinking exactly what you put in this post; then I realized that there's not really much time (for me) to study for shelfs AND Step 2. There's always another resource you can review for the shelf, so any time you spend on Step 2 is a trade off. And studying for your shelf is basically a more in-depth version of studying for Step 2 (using UWorld and a subject-specific review book). You can probably start to see the parallels here between MS3 and pre-clinical years.

There really is no "trinity", and it's annoying. There's not even a widely accepted set of resources for each individual shelf. You'll figure it out as you go along, looking at threads on here.