step 3 before residency

[Rocco Reed]

Has anyone taken step 3 before residency? if so what has ur experience been? any feedback would be appreciated

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[Noondoo]

this is from an american medical grad perspective:

I did not take step three before residency per se, but I did take it 2.5 months into residency with only having an elective and ER month and no medicine ward months. So, I think this was pretty darn close to taking it as a 4th year medical student. Now having completed several medicine ward months, I don't think it would've helped for the exam at all (there are few social work/how to fill out paper work questions/scut work placement questions on the exam...yeah, i'm being a little sarcastic but not too much). Point is, I don't think what you learn on the floors as an intern would translate into better preparation for the exam and I think I would've gotten the exact same score if I had taken the exam during my fourth year of medical school versus when I took it 2.5 months into internship. That being said, if you have the option of taking it during your internship year versus if you are a medicine resident and taking it during your third year of medicine, I would definitely take it in the third year of medicine simply because by that point in time you should have read a lot of the medicine text, done practice yearly in-service exams etc. which should translate into a higher score. You do have to study for this exam, but you do not necessarily have to have been exposed to internal medicine day-to-day floor work or Gen. surgery day to day for work for that matter. again, just my opinion, and I use internal medicine as a primary example because the exam is largely internal medicine and that is what I am familiar with this year.

 

[Rocco Reed]

thanks for the advise!

 

[Noondoo]

no problem, hope it helps!

 

[Rocco Reed]

here is another question for u noondoo.....im planning on using USMLE world the mcq bank and the ccs cases to prep for the actual exam. my understanding has it that for step 3 there is a self assesment like there was for step 1 and step 2. is this USMLE world self assesment a good predictor of how well ull do? the ones for step 1 and step 2 were for me...but the only problem witht eh step3 exam is that we have the ccs cases to worry about....does the step 3 self assesment by usmle world also have ccs cases like the actual exam...or is it just MCQ's? hope u can help!

 

[efex101]

Yup there is a self-assessment minus the CCS cases. PM for more.