Failed Data Gathering for CS

[NeedsAdvice19]

I just got my scores back recently and passed everything for CS except data gathering which failed the exam for me. I'll admit my physical exam skills are weak, but I think my history taking is strong. One thing I did notice is that I would always start with open-ended questions and the SPs would give short one-liners in return. I would try to coax more out of them and they would usually shrug their shoulders and repeat a variation of what they just said, so then I'd switch to a doctor centered approach. I feel like history taking with real patients is much easier and more natural. Anyway, I felt like I got enough information to make a decent note (reflected in that I passed that portion) so I'm wondering where I went wrong and how I can improve for next time.

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[NewYorkDoctors]

IMO (I have not yet taken the real test), I think that "indifferent shrug" on CS may indicate that they will not bail you out and tell you more than they were trained to do so. A real patient would indeed think of more things and once you hear it, you make the logical next step in thinking and ask more focused questions.

however, this test is to see if you can ask all of the relevant focused history questions and perform the relevant PE techniques accurately.

Personally, I would mix in some personal warm doctoring methods, but I would always go by the "laundry list" approach for each kind of CC. This is what several of my classmates did and they passed (though they performed average for data collection)


Ironically, my school denounces the "laundry list" method and during our practice OSCEs, they docked many points from many people who attempted to use the UWorld, FA Step2CS, Kaplan, etc... method for CS.


Apparently the powers that be want the cake and want to eat it as well. Oh well

 

[21CentSouldier]

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