Failed step 1 yesterday; Totally dejected. Please help!

[rahulkashyap]

Hi all,

This post is not for me but I want to figure out what can I do to help my partner who recently failed Step 1. I am myself not a doctor (but an engineer, so request you kind simplification) but I have seen my partner study so hard, wake up early to get used to the testing day, do Uworld blocks, first aid, NBME, USMLE online mock and all that there's to be done.

A bit of background about him: My partner was a top 50 high ranking individuals in the state when selected for his undergrad. He moved to Canada and did all of his medical licensing exams in the first shot -- that is definitely telling that this is not someone who don't know their material. Due to life events, we both moved to the US last year and he started with his USMLE steps. He failed Step 1 last year in October and was really sad and depressed. We didn't know what went wrong but I gave him all the strength I could to give another shot. He studied for a few months, revised all the materials, First Aid, Anki etc. and was scoring really high (235 and above) on the NMBE 4-hour mock tests / higher on USMLE's own mock that is available on their website. Seeing this, he booked a slot for the exam and seemed calm on the testing day (I accompanied him to the test too)

However, his results came through yesterday and he scored 193 (1 less than the passing marks). He was so sad and I couldn't see him crying but also don't know what to help him with. From my take, something definitely seems off -- a person of his caliber who is licensed in two countries (India and Canada) and scored really high on mocks shouldn't be getting this low of a score. I don't know how to help him find the strength but I wonder if you all know if it's is even possible. Can someone scoring high on mocks go so low and fail the exam? (no exam day anxiety, no pressure in preparation etc.)

This is a person with a good number of research papers, good overall profile, good connections, licensed in two countries (including in Canada with exams cleared in first shot, studied originally from a good med school in India) but just needs to take his USMLE steps. Please help -- is there any direction further? We both are so lost. Even if we book another exam, what do we change? The scores in NBME mocks were already high

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[drducky.]

I don’t know if it’s possible to score 250+ on nbmes and fail.

My first instinct is that he wasn’t actually scoring 250+. Could he have lied to you because he was embarrassed?

 

[rahulkashyap]

I don’t know if it’s possible to score 250+ on nbmes and fail.

My first instinct is that he wasn’t actually scoring 250+. Could he have lied to you because he was embarrassed?

(I changed the average of his mocks to 235 in the post, it wasn't 250 always)

Definitely not -- I'd have thought slightly that might be the case during the first failure. This is not true for his second attempt because I saw him invest tons of time, wake up early to set his body clock and saw his mock exam scores too.

With his connections and profile, should we go for a third attempt? Shall we ask for a private tutor to help? How can we know what went wrong and what to change now, given that the mocks were already high?

 

[drducky.]

(I changed the average of his mocks to 235 in the post, it wasn't 250 always)

Definitely not -- I'd have thought slightly that might be the case during the first failure. This is not true for his second attempt because I saw him invest tons of time, wake up early to set his body clock and saw his mock exam scores too.

With his connections and profile, should we go for a third attempt? Shall we ask for a private tutor to help? How can we know what went wrong and what to change now, given that the mocks were already high?

I think you guys need to sit down and figure out exactly what happened before even attempting another retake. Were the nbme scores retakes? Or was it brand new? Could he have possibly looked up answers? There’s something that’s seriously wrong that you’re not aware of after failing twice despite high practice scores.

 

[Vietnhadr11]

There's something that's seriously wrong and you guys can't be aware of. So i think you guys shoud find a tutor who might help you go through this exam.

 

[GoSpursGo]

So I hate to say this, but you guys have to be realistic--unless the connections are so strong that people are literally promising him a residency slot, he isn't going to match with 2 failures on step 1 and seemingly 2+ years outside of clinical medicine. So before you worry about how to pass step 1, you need to have a real honest discussion about what his path is to practicing medicine in the US vs. alternative options.