Eliminate Step 2 CS

[Sir Robin]

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Hey everyone! Tired of this CS nonsense? Some classmates of mine have drafted a petition to convince the NBME to eliminate Step 2 CS as a requirement for US Medical Graduates.


We already have over 1,000 signatures. Please consider signing if you're not interested in paying >$1,200 + travel fees only to get a result that your school's OSCE could already tell you.

 

[Suit]

Its probably a nice source of income for them.

 

[Sir Robin]

Its probably a nice source of income for them.

Definitely! And a needless cost for us.

 

[Dave89]

The NBME upon reading this petition:

 

[Psai]

I already paid though

 

[AlmostAnMD]

NBME exec's can't make their boat payments without this CS garbage

never gonna happen dude nice try though

 

[Sir Robin]

Change can't happen without first making some noise. So let's make noise.

 

[Psai]

Change can't happen without first making some noise. So let's make noise.

I'll do it after I match

 

[W19]

There is big demand for the MD/DO degree... Lawyers/MBA and some unscrupulous physicians are using it to cash in...

 

[payustak]

Lawyers/MBA and some unscrupulous physicians are using it to cash in

...

 

[Sir Robin]

There is big demand for the MD/DO degree... Lawyers/MBA and some unscrupulous physicians are using it to cash in...

Unfortunately yes. I feel the medical field is very amenable to "evidence-based" decisions. There is poor/little evidence Step 2 CS improves quality of care provided by US medical graduates. This is the sticking point we can get with movers and shakers who can directly impact this.

 

[W19]

Unfortunately yes. I feel the medical field is very amenable to "evidence-based" decisions. There is poor/little evidence Step 2 CS improves quality of care provided by US medical graduates. This is the sticking point we can get with movers and shakers who can directly impact this.

Ha! I signed the petition anyway... I heard the logistics of that exam are terrible and students sometimes can't even find an open spot when they want to sign up for it.

 

[Sir Robin]

Thanks for your support!

Follow the official website for continual updates: http://www.endstep2cs.com/

 

[Goro]

Silly me; I would have thought a Board certification exam would demonstrate that you have achieved the minimal competency in the skills required of your profession, and said skills are the same from JAB to Harvard; U W to Miami, thus eliminating any risk of a local or regional variation of something that that doctor needs to do whenever s/h goes in this country.

Exams aren't for teaching, they're for assessment.

Unfortunately yes. I feel the medical field is very amenable to "evidence-based" decisions. There is poor/little evidence Step 2 CS improves quality of care provided by US medical graduates. This is the sticking point we can get with movers and shakers who can directly impact this.

 

[Cytarabine]

Silly me; I would have thought a Board certification exam would demonstrate that you have achieved the minimal competency in the skills required of your profession, and said skills are the same from JAB to Harvard; U W to Miami, thus eliminating any risk of a local or regional variation of something that that doctor needs to do whenever s/h goes in this country.

Exams aren't for teaching, they're for assessment.

I'm not sure what your background is as far as knowledge about cs, but I don't believe you're a physician and I think you're primarily involved with med school admissions +/- preclinical sciences. And also hate on the "millennial mentality" of griping.

http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp1213760?af=R&rss=currentIssue

If you consider the population of test takers who speak English and don't completely blow off preparing, the already extremely low rate of repeated failure cited in the above study would drop to essentially zero. It's a bad test, it's an expensive test, and it's a time consuming test. And it would probably be well replaced by a spoken English proficiency test

As far as the purpose of testing, the purpose is not to teach, but I'm not sure where you got there from that post. The ultimate end goal is indeed to improve the pool of physicians practicing and subsequently the quality of patient care

 

[Goro]

I surmise from your citation that the "cost to weeding out incompetents ratio" doesn't merit the expense of traveling to, say Scaranton, for the exam. My own students have the same issues with COMLEX II PE, so I would posit that at a minimum, multiple testing centers could relieve the economic burden.

But I'll see you and raise you:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26505103

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25250743

http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.105...id=ori:rid:crossref.org&rfr_dat=cr_pub=pubmed

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19907366

As for the Millennials ripping, deal with it.

I'm not sure what your background is as far as knowledge about cs, but I don't believe you're a physician and I think you're primarily involved with med school admissions +/- preclinical sciences. And also hate on the "millennial mentality" of griping.

http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp1213760?af=R&rss=currentIssue

If you consider the population of test takers who speak English and don't completely blow off preparing, the already extremely low rate of repeated failure cited in the above study would drop to essentially zero. It's a bad test, it's an expensive test, and it's a time consuming test. And it would probably be well replaced by a spoken English proficiency test

As far as the purpose of testing, the purpose is not to teach, but I'm not sure where you got there from that post. The ultimate end goal is indeed to improve the pool of physicians practicing and subsequently the quality of patient care

 

[Cytarabine]

I surmise from your citation that the "cost to weeding out incompetents ratio" doesn't merit the expense of traveling to, say Scaranton, for the exam. My own students have the same issues with COMLEX II PE, so I would posit that at a minimum, multiple testing centers could relieve the economic burden.

But I'll see you and raise you:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26505103

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25250743

http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc1304496#SA2?url_ver=Z39.88-2003&rfr_id=ori:rid:crossref.org&rfr_dat=cr_pub=pubmed

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19907366

As for the Millennials ripping, deal with it.

With or without the expense of traveling (which can be significant), the test itself is >$1000, and the article I cited only used the cost of the test (not travel) in its analysis.

I only have access to the abstracts currently as I'm in clinic on 4g, but for the articles you cited,

The first article found that there was a very low intercase correlation, so a student may do exceedingly poorly on one case and wonderful on the next. What was the comment on distinguishing ability of overall performance for a student to student comparison?

The second article wasn't even about step 2 CS.

The third article - "We may ignore to our peril the implied warning that without a mandatory high-stakes clinical skills exam, too many new graduates may lack the clinical skills deemed critical to effective health care. Considering its positive effects, a national clinical skills exam seems an excellent value proposition indeed." If, after a student spends thousands of hours over the course of 3rd year in a clinical role, preparation for a one day 12 patient pass fail exam is what ultimately develops a student's clinical skills, then the entire medical education system is in such dire need of reform that it would be crazy to think 1 easy test will resolve those issues

The fourth article only looks at how what examinees do during the test influences their performance on the test. There's no measure of how it can be extrapolated to real patient care skills

And I'm done with this test. I passed on my first attempt. I don't have vested interest outside of my interest in future medical students

 

[Dave89]

Does anybody know whether the NBME has provided data on how much it costs them to hire the SPs?

 

[W19]

I hope that petition makes NBME reconsider that CS exam, but I am not betting anything on it. Regardless, it's good to see that some medical students are starting to understand that some of these organizations and their administrators are in the business of enriching themselves. They just pretend to care about the quality of med school education...

 

[ortnakas]

I'm in a DO program so I have to take the COMLEX version. I'm not opposed to a standardized test on patient encounters, but I am opposed to the ridiculous cost. And that it's only offered in one city-- soon to be two, but both of them are east of the Mississippi.

 

[Psai]

This test was an incredibly expensive waste of time. With room, flight and the exam I think I paid over 1500 for no reason. The cases were very straightforward and mindless. No one smoked but everyone drank so I did cage on everyone. I've never done cage in real life ever. I feel for every standardized patient that has to sit there, going through the same exact conversation over and over again with the same short coated students

 

[MrChance2]

I think theY should raise the cost to $20,000 for the test. It's already clear it doesn't matter what the students think, or if it helps the public, and it's about the money. No 3rd year is going to drop out over $20,000. They're really leaving money on the table.

I'd also suggest adding a STEP 4, there would be no written or skills component to it but it would solely consist of braveheart style first rights with our significant others and giving up our first born so as to lower their costs of standardized patients for the future $20k level 2 CS exams.

 

[Ismet]

Closing thread. SDN is not the platform to support 3rd party petitions.