I used anking for Step 1, what should I be using for Step 2? Do I need to keep up with step 1 cards?
is step 2 basically all the shelf exams in one exam at the end of the year?
There is some overlap, but this is the basic concept.
Step 1 is a basic exam. Ex. Patient comes in with X diagnosis. What is the MOA of the drug that treats it. There's some logic and thinking you can think to logic your way through the question. Think of Step 1 like learning a language. Diseases are like nouns, mechanisms are like verb conjugations.
Step 2 is more of a clinical context exam. Pay attention to gender, vitals. They won't ask you what is the classic treatment for a disease. There may be a twist. Now that you've learned the language, can you assess some things in that language.
Step 3 is kind of a mix with day 1 being biostats/Step 1 and day 2 being more Step 2 like with cases.
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I think Anki is helpful for Step 2 but not as helpful as it is for Step 1.
For Step 2, it differs from the shelfs a bit. Hard to explain exactly how so. The topics that Step 2 tests are a little different from the shelf boards which are more in line with the specific specialty. For example, for the OB shelf, ACOG is great but for the boards use USMLE Step 2 UW and specific Step 2 resources are better. Of course, both complement each other with minimal contradictions. The key to step 2 which I think isn't spelled out to a lot of people is that it's not like the more facts you know, the better. On Step 1, UW would introduce a new concept like how digoxin worked for example. That's a concept that's fair game for the exam. For Step 2, there are UNLIMITED topics/concepts they can test. Focus less on the topics/knowledge content outside the objectives which are fairly well covered by onlinemeded and other resources. Focus more on the scenarios. They'll give you a question where the patient is crashing in hypercapnia with inability to protect airway with respiratory acidosis (it won't be spelt out but if you read, you'll gather that). That's the scenario. One answer will be some pneumonia antibiotics. Which antibiotic..who cares, the patient is crashing. One will be fluids, but the patient is in respiratory failure and it doesn't appear to be a sepsis picture. C will be intubate the patient phrased in doctor speak. Probably should do that. Don't get me wrong, Step 2 tests a lot of new knowledge based content too, but much less so than Step 1 and there will be some Step 1 stuff on Step 2 for those with great memories to boost their score.
I personally am a better Step 1 taker and noticed a high Step 1, a drop off on Step 2, and noted Day 2 MCQs were harder than Day 1 on Step 3. Step 1>Step 3>Step 2 for me percentile wise. Some are like me, but from most SDN and Reddit posts, most people are the opposite.
