MKSAP 16/17 for Step 3

[playingfrombehind]

For anyone that's tried MKSAP 16 - is it useful for Step 3. Finding it a little on the easier side compared to UWORLD.

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[Keto]

Hi!

I haven't taken Step 3, but I've been listening to MKSAP 16 for a few months now every day when I'm biking to university. It's really worth the buck (check with you medical library, as they might have the program)! Dr Don Deye goes through different fields of IM with an specialist of the field - they will teach you not only the most updated guidelines, but also share their critical clinical thinking approach.

The whole program takes of course time..., and I haven't started with the books yet (will probably do it once I'm in residency).

You might consider for a review their book Boards Basics [1]. I found it very good for a general board review for IM for my school exams (highlights wrong answers, shows differentials in nice tables).

BTW I heared MKSAP 17 is coming out soon.

Have a great day!

[1] Official Preview: http://issuu.com/americancollegeofphysicians/docs/mk16b_7_bb3_sample__unprotected_?e=4496078/2604202

 

[playingfrombehind]

Hi!

I haven't taken Step 3, but I've been listening to MKSAP 16 for a few months now every day when I'm biking to university. It's really worth the buck (check with you medical library, as they might have the program)! Dr Don Deye goes through different fields of IM with an specialist of the field - they will teach you not only the most updated guidelines, but also share their critical clinical thinking approach.

The whole program takes of course time..., and I haven't started with the books yet (will probably do it once I'm in residency).

You might consider for a review their book Boards Basics [1]. I found it very good for a general board review for IM for my school exams (highlights wrong answers, shows differentials in nice tables).

BTW I heared MKSAP 17 is coming out soon.

Have a great day!

[1] Official Preview: http://issuu.com/americancollegeofphysicians/docs/mk16b_7_bb3_sample__unprotected_?e=4496078/2604202

hey thanks for your help - i was referring specifically to the self-assessment questions - I have never been a lecture person. I was wondering if the MKSAP-16/17 questions will help with step 3 specifically thanks

 

[yayforscrambling]

hey thanks for your help - i was referring specifically to the self-assessment questions - I have never been a lecture person. I was wondering if the MKSAP-16/17 questions will help with step 3 specifically thanks

They definitely won't hurt. But they also go into the kind of depth that will only leave you weak in other topics. Don't get me wrong, the lectures are beyond amazing, but the time it takes to go through the lectures or even just the questions is not worth your time. More importantly, there are so many other questions out there geared towards Step 3 that you could use your time for them. uWorld and Qbank are the major ones. Heck if you can get through both of these question banks twice each, you cannot possibly "not" kill Step 3.

Go through uworld and Qbank 3 times each if you have that much time. It won't hurt at all, and the stems are somewhat similar from what others are saying. Just remember that a lot of us just finished medical school and are taking it. We're not internists. Heck, a lot of people out there are like Pgy 7s doing something in child psychiatry for example. Step 3 isn't expecting you to know what you had to know for your medicine shelf exam in third year.

It wants you answer a question about pre-eclampsia, hyperthyroidism, fomepizole, PTSD, standardized mortality ratio, what nerves innervate the diaphragm, give amox or don't, urine incontinence, cervical cerclage, 3 questions on some weird a$$ drug ad, echo vs EKG vs biochemistry, anterior vs posterior MI, give IV fluids vs epi vs dobutamine vs leave them the hell alone, EEG vs tox screen, NL saline vs dextrose, my nuts hurt, i've had a rash on my penis since i did my neighbor, should i get this sutured or not because I just got bit by my dog, is it really the glucose of 500 or the hyponatremia that I have that's causing me to be weird, calculating PPV and NPV, and telling a pt to stop emailing you because it's annoying the crap out of you. Obviously these are all examples I just thought of off the top of my head to give you an example of how you need to know just a little bit about everything.

good luck!

 

[playingfrombehind]

They definitely won't hurt. But they also go into the kind of depth that will only leave you weak in other topics. Don't get me wrong, the lectures are beyond amazing, but the time it takes to go through the lectures or even just the questions is not worth your time. More importantly, there are so many other questions out there geared towards Step 3 that you could use your time for them. uWorld and Qbank are the major ones. Heck if you can get through both of these question banks twice each, you cannot possibly "not" kill Step 3.

Go through uworld and Qbank 3 times each if you have that much time. It won't hurt at all, and the stems are somewhat similar from what others are saying. Just remember that a lot of us just finished medical school and are taking it. We're not internists. Heck, a lot of people out there are like Pgy 7s doing something in child psychiatry for example. Step 3 isn't expecting you to know what you had to know for your medicine shelf exam in third year.

It wants you answer a question about pre-eclampsia, hyperthyroidism, fomepizole, PTSD, standardized mortality ratio, what nerves innervate the diaphragm, give amox or don't, urine incontinence, cervical cerclage, 3 questions on some weird a$$ drug ad, echo vs EKG vs biochemistry, anterior vs posterior MI, give IV fluids vs epi vs dobutamine vs leave them the hell alone, EEG vs tox screen, NL saline vs dextrose, my nuts hurt, i've had a rash on my penis since i did my neighbor, should i get this sutured or not because I just got bit by my dog, is it really the glucose of 500 or the hyponatremia that I have that's causing me to be weird, calculating PPV and NPV, and telling a pt to stop emailing you because it's annoying the crap out of you. Obviously these are all examples I just thought of off the top of my head to give you an example of how you need to know just a little bit about everything.

good luck!

thanks for your comprehensive response - by Qbank you mean Kaplan??

 

[jakeislove]

It won't hurt but the question style is different from what will be seen on your actual exam. A second or third trip through UWorld, learning admission criteria, and hitting stats would be a better use of your time.

As far as CCS goes, the real software is far more sensitive than uworld's, when it comes to cases ending. My longest case was 7 minutes. Things moved way fast and I didn't feel comfortable at any time. Some of the management stuff suggested by UWorld and First Aid was difficult to include.

 

[yayforscrambling]

thanks for your comprehensive response - by Qbank you mean Kaplan??

yup, you're right on... It's Kaplan's Qbank, and it's really cheap (in my opinion).

With that being said though, I think it's safe to say that pretty much everyone around here will tell you that uWorld is WAY better than Kaplan, but I guess I'd do Kaplan if I had that kind of time. Again, it's rare that you'll find something that'll "hurt" you, but at the same time you don't want to hyperfocus on something like internal medicine (e.g. MKSAP) and then on test day blank out on some stupid question about whether to give a G1P0 steroids or not, and if yes, at what week. And if yes, what kind of steroids, and if you're giving those steroids, are you doing them IV, IM, subQ, etc... so you want to try to keep things simple and random, i.e. uworld and qbank... Qbank tends to go into really stupid details that I just can't see myself dealing with on the real thing. But I'll let you know for sure in a couple of days from now.

I'd simply do uworld 3 times if I had the time. Uworld tends to give you question formats that are similar to the real thing so that you can kinda build a "routine" that you can use on the real day.

A lot of us here are not huge fans of biostats, so it would definitely be worth your time to look into something a bit more detailed than uworld since it seems they've been hitting EBM/biostats hard (like 2nd yr med school style hard). Many people here have mentioned that uworld is lacking on stats.

You also have the uworld CCS cases which are definitely worth your time as mentioned above.

In short, just keep it random and simple.

best of luck