Let me tell my story with out any exaggeration.
NonUs IMG. 10 years passed after medical school graduation and has been far away general practice.
Studied first aid and chicago notes, some sheets. Took 3 days course in Atlanta, last day was for mock exam. Passed mock exam.
I have been doing research in US since last july and my English proficiency is intermediate. I took cs just for having a medical license in united states and applying for clinical fellowship in my specialty. I started to study 1 st of December and took exam at 20th of Feb.
I studied mostly online and with my co fellow but honestly we did not study all physical examination until last week and I learned orthopedic examination in course.
In my mock exam 5 out of 13 sp told me there was no issue about sep but rest of them adviced me to speak slow and loudly which I did in the exam.
In my exam, time was run out in once case so I couldn't do closure and did not let the patient know why I have to leave, just said I have to leave and will be back with results.
I did not understand the speech of two patients and was not able to answer challenging questions and somehow I got angry with one of them and did not share my ddx with him
There was 1 room that true diagnosis was not in my ddx list!
In 2 or 3 room my differentials were not in correct order and supporting findings were not enough.
Even during the exam and break times I was feeling that I would fail. That was definitely true feelings. I thought I would fail from sep and ice.
What I did correct ?
I did all CIS components. Wrote good patient notes. I can't recall much things that I did perfect but I smiled all patients and did good physical examinations in allmost all encounters. I showed confidence during physical examination which was my strongest part during whole exam. My performance is borderline in all components and it was the same with mock exam.
That was a true nightmare and thankfully it passed.
