Step 2 CS October Score Release Thread

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chocoholicsoxfan

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I believe this week is the week!

My permit is still up :(

Now I can't help but feel I failed
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Congrats to everyone who passed. This was my second attempt and thankfully I passed and no longer have to worry about this dumpster fire of a test. Just wanna address those who are commenting about the lack of effort they put into studying or all of the things they didn’t do during the encounter and still managed to pass...it doesn’t feel great to hear that from someone who failed, especially if they thought they prepared and performed well during the exam. It makes you wonder how badly you must’ve f***ed up to afford a fail on a test that other people are passing with little effort. This test is massively subjective and I’ve realized from this experience that there is absolutely nothing that can reassure you that you passed other than seeing a passing score. Plus, it perpetuates the misconception that this test is an easy pass and you just need to know how to say hello and wash your hands.

I know I’m ranting, but I’m coming from a good place. To those who failed- do not lose hope. This test sucks and these next few weeks/months will be tough but I have all the confidence that you can do it. And most importantly, this test doesn’t say a damn thing about your self worth. It’s just 12 people trying to remember what they thought about your 15-min interaction. Hang in there, feel free to DM me if you ever want to talk <3
 
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AMG - passed with nothing too close to borderline, ICE was a lot higher than CIS. I spent 2 months freaking out and losing years of my life over this stupid test so hopefully this post can help others who are anxious before/after this thing

My experience:
Took it in LA. Studied half-heartedly for maybe a week or two for a couple hours in the evening and more on the weekend.

I felt that First Aid did not prepare me well yet there is no better resource so kind of a catch-22. The # of questions they ask is so unrealistic. Also the way they want you to CAGE/counsel etc I think is artificial and actually detracted from my CIS score.

My main tips would be:

1) Make you sure you do a thorough ROS! You should have a standard ROS you ask everyone and then do system specific as it pertains to the case. I did not do this and feel like I missed 2/12 diagnoses because of this
2) A lot of people on these threads say the diagnoses are super obvious. I do not agree. I would say 40% were obvious, 40% you could get if you asked the right questions and 20% I'm still not sure what they were going for. They can be easy to miss if you don't ask ROS and SPECIFIC qs because SPs are trained to only respond to specific questions
3) Similar to 2. This isn't like your school's OSCE where the SPs volunteer most of the important info if you ask enough open ended questions. I felt like I needed to know what my main diagnoses were so I could know what to ask
4) Ask EVERY female pt about LMP, ask everyone about diet/exercise etc.
5) You don't have to get all the diagnoses right. I feel like I missed the top diagnosis in 3/12 and in 1 other still don't really know what they were going for. In a couple of others my diagnoses were misordered. Still got high performance on ICE
6) For CIS watch the videos online of performance on the official website, I did this AFTER my test and wish I had done it before. I think I got too caught up in CAGEing, counseling etc and forgot to just do the basic empathy stuff. Don't CAGE people who drink 1 drink per week, etc. First aid goes a little overboard imo with the idea that there is a CIS checklist and you have to do all this stuff. I ended up spending so much time doing that stuff during my first encounter I didn't even have time for closure
7) Closure carries a lot of points for CIS make sure you leave enough time for it. If I had to redo it I would save all the counseling for the end. I think trying to counsel during the data gathering part really messed up my flow and cost me time I could have used to take a better history.
8) A word about pertinent negatives. I think one thing that helped me a lot is I had a lot of evidence for each diagnosis. The way I did this was by maximizing the use of pertinent negatives. These can be things like "vitals WNL." This is not super intuitive so look at how First Aid does it and practice doing it, they actually do a nice job.
9) When you go through First Aid role play the scenarios and practice the note on the real software. 10 minutes seems like enough, but it is actually not much time for the note, I almost ran out of time in every one, probably because I spent the full 15 mins in the room for almost every patient.

Overall: I made A LOT of mistakes and still got high performance for ICE, so despite the posts on here where people seemingly did everything right and failed I think there is a lot of leeway. I think it is more important to have reasonable, well, supported diagnoses than it is to "get the answer." For many of my cases there were many reasonable diagnostic possibilities suggested by the history and only after leaving the exam did I miss what they were probably going for but it didn't seem to hurt me.
 
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financetomedicine said:
AMG - passed with nothing too close to borderline, ICE was a lot higher than CIS. I spent 2 months freaking out and losing years of my life over this stupid test so hopefully this post can help others who are anxious before/after this thing

My experience:
Took it in LA. Studied half-heartedly for maybe a week or two for a couple hours in the evening and more on the weekend.

I felt that First Aid did not prepare me well. The # of questions they ask is so unrealistic. Also the way they want you to CAGE/counsel etc I think is artificial and actually detracted from my CIS score.

My main tips would be:

1) Make you sure you do a thorough ROS! You should have a standard ROS you ask everyone and then do system specific as it pertains to the case. I did not do this and feel like I missed 2/12 diagnoses because of this
2) A lot of people on these threads say the diagnoses are super obvious. I did not agree. I would say 40% were obvious, 40% you could get if you asked the right questions and 20% I'm still not sure what they were going for. They can be easy to miss if you don't ask ROS and SPECIFIC q because SPs are trained to only respond to specific questions
3) Similar to 2. This isn't like your school's OSCE where the SPs volunteer most of the important info if you ask enough open ended questions. I felt like I needed to know what my main diagnoses were so I could know what to ask
4) Ask EVERY female pt about LMP, ask everyone about diet/exercise etc.
5) You don't have to get all the diagnoses right. I feel like I missed the top diagnosis in 3/12 and in 1 other still don't really know what they were going for. In a couple of others my diagnoses were misordered. Still got high performance on ICE
6) For CIS watch the videos online of performance on the official website, I did this AFTER my test and wish I had done it before. I think I got too caught up in CAGEing, counseling etc and forgot to just do the basic empathy stuff. Don't CAGE people who drink 1 drink per week, etc. First aid goes a little overboard imo with the idea that there is a CIS checklist and you have to do all this stuff. I ended up spending so much time doing that stuff during my first encounter I didn't even have time for closure
7) Closure carries a lot of points for CIS make sure you leave enough time for it. If I had to redo it I would save all the counseling for the end. I think trying to counsel during the data gathering part really messed up my flow and cost me time I could have used to take a better history.

Overall: I made A LOT of mistakes and still got high performance for ICE, so despite the posts on here where people seemingly did everything right and failed I think there is a lot of leeway. I think it is more important to have reasonable, well, supported diagnoses than it is to "get the answer." For many of my cases there were many reasonable diagnostic possibilities suggested by the history and only after leaving the exam did I miss what they were probably going for but it didn't seem to hurt me.
Click to expand...
This is perfect advice.
CAGEing everyone is not what this test is about. Don't cage unless the person is an alcoholic. CIS is basically about the videos they show on their website. Follow their videos to the tee, CIS should be a gimme section to pass.
ICE is what's hard. Like the above person said, FA does a pretty poor job (too detail oriented). It is practically impossible to memorize all the questions FA asks. You need to have a diff for each chief complaint and few questions to ask for each differential (that is all you have time for). Your exam should be focused towards ruling in or out those diffs.
Supporting reasons are important for ICE which is where FA fails again. They have very few supporting points for their differentials. AMBOSS does a much better job although their note is very detailed, it gives you an idea of what kind of things you can use to support your differential. AMBOSS cases are also hard but worth it.
 
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sg5667 said:
Congrats to everyone who passed. This was my second attempt and thankfully I passed and no longer have to worry about this dumpster fire of a test. Just wanna address those who are commenting about the lack of effort they put into studying or all of the things they didn’t do during the encounter and still managed to pass...it doesn’t feel great to hear that from someone who failed, especially if they thought they prepared and performed well during the exam. It makes you wonder how badly you must’ve f***ed up to afford a fail on a test that other people are passing with little effort. This test is massively subjective and I’ve realized from this experience that there is absolutely nothing that can reassure you that you passed other than seeing a passing score. Plus, it perpetuates the misconception that this test is an easy pass and you just need to know how to say hello and wash your hands.

I know I’m ranting, but I’m coming from a good place. To those who failed- do not lose hope. This test sucks and these next few weeks/months will be tough but I have all the confidence that you can do it. And most importantly, this test doesn’t say a damn thing about your self worth. It’s just 12 people trying to remember what they thought about your 15-min interaction. Hang in there, feel free to DM me if you ever want to talk <3
Click to expand...
I agree with this too. You can pass without studying for a single day or you can fail after studying for 2 weeks.
But I think the point I want to make is don't leave anything to luck. If you study hard, you will increase your chances of passing to a very percentage. I think 94% is the overall pass rate. You can probably increase your chances to 98% by studying.
 
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I think for a long time I will wake up everyday and ask myself how the heck I passed this test.
 
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curiousmind8 said:
Please, limit your posts and questions to only CK exam experience related. It's hard for others to go through so many unrelated posts to finally a post about CK exam.

Thank you very much to all those who share their experience with everyone.

Best of luck!
Click to expand...
Nephronlearner said:
August 27, Los Angeles :clap: - couldn't help but notice - same day, same place! Haha
Click to expand...
Mine was August 26 , LA
 
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forums.studentdoctor.net

USMLE - Official 2019 Step 2 CS Mistakes Made & Still Passed (or Failed) Thread

TL;DR: Help your fellow classmates by sharing your experience with Step 2 CS. Template below. Hello Everyone, I know I speak for others when I say the mental anxiety I felt waiting for my Step 2 CS score was probably unmatched in my 4 years of med school. Only thing that came close was...
forums.studentdoctor.net forums.studentdoctor.net

Another bump to share your experiences especially for those who will receive scores this Wed. Good luck!
 
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Agreed this is NOT an easy exam. That breakdown for easy vs easy with right questions vs wtf is perfect.

A piece of advice that I don't see thrown around a lot is asking the patient to repeat back what you said during counseling. This saved me a few cases since the actor would (accidentally?) tell me things that I didn't suggest but were correct. I also got far right for CIS, so I'm assuming it adds empathy points too.
 
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