Advice for taking the USMLEs

[Treg]

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Hi everyone,

Well I just wrote my step 1 today--I am so glad to have that beast finished. I am curious about how you guys have approached taking your steps with your PhD in the middle of your MD program. I did my PhD right before med school, so i have been working on my postdoc through med school. I was part-time for MS1/MS2, and I took this year off to be a full time postdoc before heading back to the wards in August. I had planned to take step 1 right at the end of MS2 last summer, but I was so burnt out that I decided to give myself a bit of a break. Well, setting aside the proper time to study this year has been difficult with experiments/conferences/manuscripts/grants etc. taking the front seat, so I haven't been able to make the time until now to study. I took a good 6 weeks to prepare, and it was a royal pain. I can't imagine having to choose between taking it right after MS2 and then not thinking 'that way' for a few years, or leaving it until you are heading back after, again, not thinking 'that way' for years. You know what I mean?

What do you guys do? Just curious.

🙂 Treg

 

[gbwillner]

Hi everyone,

Well I just wrote my step 1 today--I am so glad to have that beast finished. I am curious about how you guys have approached taking your steps with your PhD in the middle of your MD program. I did my PhD right before med school, so i have been working on my postdoc through med school. I was part-time for MS1/MS2, and I took this year off to be a full time postdoc before heading back to the wards in August. I had planned to take step 1 right at the end of MS2 last summer, but I was so burnt out that I decided to give myself a bit of a break. Well, setting aside the proper time to study this year has been difficult with experiments/conferences/manuscripts/grants etc. taking the front seat, so I haven't been able to make the time until now to study. I took a good 6 weeks to prepare, and it was a royal pain. I can't imagine having to choose between taking it right after MS2 and then not thinking 'that way' for a few years, or leaving it until you are heading back after, again, not thinking 'that way' for years. You know what I mean?

What do you guys do? Just curious.

🙂 Treg

I wouldn't recommend doing what I did to anybody.

I was at an institution that gives you 6 Mo clinics before the PhD portion. After those 6 Mo, before starting the PhD, I went on a 2 week holiday with med school friends. I planned on studying for step 1 immediately afterwards and taking the test 3 weeks later, just before the PhD started. When I returned from the holiday I was informed that my check for step 1 was lost in the mail and my application was not complete. Thus I had to re-send the check (this was before you could pay on-line) and reschedule. I wanted to take it ASAP to retain as much MD knowledge as possible, and the earliest I could do so was 3 months into grad school. Since I was in the middle of grad school, I did not study for the test. I bought Q-bank but only did 100 questions or so...

In the end my scores were sub-average. I am pretty lucky to have done as well- I really blew this off knowing I would pass. I did not realize at the time the importance of this test in your ability to land great residency spots. Luckily it did not matter in the end and I got into my favorite residency, perhaps because I had great clinical grades and a great publication record from a prestiegous lab.

 

[Neuronix]

Hi Treg, how's life?

Here at my school we do MS1, MS2 (including 6 months of clinics), then take Step I. Most students study 1 month for step I immediately after second year, then take 2 weeks vacation, then there's a month before grad school starts during which you have some flexibility.

I did it a little differently in that I went away 6 weeks--2 weeks vacation followed by 4 weeks global health work--then came back, studied a month, and took Step I. This would have been the summer after you visited.

Good luck,
Eric