Has anyone ever had to repeat the step 2 cs?

[Poety]

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Have any US grads have to repeat this test? A resident told me, oh if you speak English you'll pass - whats that about?

 

[sacrament]

Competent people from my school have failed the exam. Not many, but the frightening thing is that there seems to be no rhyme or reason to who fails it.

 

[DrMom]

Competent people from my school have failed the exam. Not many, but the frightening thing is that there seems to be no rhyme or reason to who fails it.

They probably fail a few examinees when funds are running low. 🙄

 

[APACHE3]

If you have the attitude that if you speak English you will pass, it may be a long day for you and an extra $1000 to boot. The only repeater in my group of 22 was a USMG. Buy FA, take 10 days to study and smile a lot. GL

 

[Poety]

If you have the attitude that if you speak English you will pass, it may be a long day for you and an extra $1000 to boot. The only repeater in my group of 22 was a USMG. Buy FA, take 10 days to study and smile a lot. GL

Oh I don't have that attitude at all apache, I thought it was rude that the resident said that to me - kinda snotty.

I have blueprints, and two other books I thought were good before I realized I had bought one already - you think that will be enough? hope so!

 

[DrMom]

If you forget the point of the exam (interaction with the patient & being empathetic) then you could easily fail the exam. They want to see that you're not a complete ***** medically, but if you nail every dx but don't remember that you're supposed to be sensitive to the pt (there are some other threads around here that explain what this should entail) you're gonna fail.

 

[Poety]

If you forget the point of the exam (interaction with the patient & being empathetic) then you could easily fail the exam. They want to see that you're not a complete ***** medically, but if you nail every dx but don't remember that you're supposed to be sensitive to the pt (there are some other threads around here that explain what this should entail) you're gonna fail.

Whats shameful is that any medical student would ever have to be reminded to be sensitive to a patient ---- thank God I was a nurse before med school, bedside manner has never been an issue - thats like nursing 101. 🙂

 

[DrMom]

Some med students want to just go in and get the diagnosis. The diagnosis, while important, is not what this particular test is most concerned with.

 

[sacrament]

Whats shameful is that any medical student would ever have to be reminded to be sensitive to a patient ---- thank God I was a nurse before med school, bedside manner has never been an issue - thats like nursing 101. 🙂

This is just hearsay, but apparently most US medical students who fail this exam are actually failing the "data collection" portion, not the communication portion.

 

[TommyGunn04]

This is just hearsay, but apparently most US medical students who fail this exam are actually failing the "data collection" portion, not the communication portion.

strange, this is the exact opposite of what I was told by our advisory deans. They spoke about communications they've had with other medical school deans over their listservs, and commented that all failures have been in the "communication" section. Frighteningly, many of these failures have occurred with students who have excelled clinically. No one seems to be able to figure out why these people have failed, and my understanding is that they generally pass the second time around.

 

[Radiohead]

Our dean told us the same thing. We had 5 or 6 out of 190 fail last year, and each failed the communication skills part. It is impossible to completely nail the H&P and the note in 25 minutes. Thus, there must be a huge margin for error in the data gathering section. As long as you focus on the correct organ system, do a semblance of a physical exam, and write a note that is about the correct patient w/ a "reasonable" DDx you should pass the ICE portion. I ran out of time on 2-3 encounters, did not order a bunch of tests that would rule out life-threating conditions, never checked pulses, draped the patient only before the abdominal exam, the list of my mistakes is long. The good thing is that I still passed. People fail the CIS portion becase they are so intent on nailing the Dx, that they forget about the patient. They go in, and if they see someone with flank pain moving all around the exam table, they're like BAM, you have kidney stones, we're going to do this and that. They leave in under 5 minutes. You need to spend time with the patient, ask all of the historical questions (eventhough you know what they have). Tell them you can see that they are in "fake" pain, wash your hands, drape the pt. Explain what you think is going on, and tell them what you intend to do, and always ask if they have any Q's at the end. It seems lame, but spending the extra $1000 is a bit more lame in my opinion.

 

[sacrament]

Well as I said, it was just hearsay. The word going around my school is that data-collection is the tripping point, but who knows, this is a small sample size we're talking about. If I fail any part of it, I'm going to go postal. I guess only the dirty ugly communist bastards at the NBME know the breakdown for sure. I wish a thousand plagues on their houses, and I'll see them in hell.

 

[Poety]

Well as I said, it was just hearsay. The word going around my school is that data-collection is the tripping point, but who knows, this is a small sample size we're talking about. If I fail any part of it, I'm going to go postal. I guess only the dirty ugly communist bastards at the NBME know the breakdown for sure. I wish a thousand plagues on their houses, and I'll see them in hell.

oh my gawd im laffing so hard... thats hilarious!

I was told the same as everyone above by my dean today - that his "elite" students have failed because of communication, he EMPHASIZED that it is MOST critical to summarize the encounter and close it -- hmm wonder what he knows that we don't?

I wish you all lots of luck - I just started this thread because a resident made that snide comment to me and I was a bit put off by it, glad to see we are all on the same page here!

 

[cyanocobalamin]

Last year everyone from my school passed the first time 'round.
I read that most of the failures of US students are confined to a half dozen or less schools.
Which ones, is anyone's guess.

 

[sacrament]

Last year everyone from my school passed the first time 'round.
I read that most of the failures of US students are confined to a half dozen or less schools.
Which ones, is anyone's guess.

Considering that roughly 4% of US students fail it, if all the failures were confined to a handful of schools then essentially everybody from those schools would have to be failing the exam, and we'd definitely be figuring out which schools those were.

 

[cyanocobalamin]

Considering that roughly 4% of US students fail it, if all the failures were confined to a handful of schools then essentially everybody from those schools would have to be failing the exam, and we'd definitely be figuring out which schools those were.

Sorry, I remembered the information a little differently. Here's the info word for word from the aamc.

http://www.aamc.org/members/osr/reports/aamcnbme.htm

"ass Rate Information: Students are scored on three sections for the CS exam: Integrated Clinical Encounter (ICE), Communication and Interpersonal Skills (CIS), and Spoken English Proficiency (SEP). All three components must be successfully passed during the same test administration in order to achieve a passing score on the CS test. Current data on 22,000 examinees showed that there was an 8% failure rate since the initiation of the test in 2004. U.S. students failed at a lower rate than foreign medical graduates, at 3 and 17 percent respectively. For U.S. students, the most common component failed was the ICE; foreign graduates tended to fail the CIS component. Looking at the failure rate at US medical schools overall, it is interesting to note that a small number of schools (6-8) had relatively high fail rates compared to all the rest"

 

[sacrament]

Sorry, I remembered the information a little differently. Here's the info word for word from the aamc.

http://www.aamc.org/members/osr/reports/aamcnbme.htm

"ass Rate Information: Students are scored on three sections for the CS exam: Integrated Clinical Encounter (ICE), Communication and Interpersonal Skills (CIS), and Spoken English Proficiency (SEP). All three components must be successfully passed during the same test administration in order to achieve a passing score on the CS test. Current data on 22,000 examinees showed that there was an 8% failure rate since the initiation of the test in 2004. U.S. students failed at a lower rate than foreign medical graduates, at 3 and 17 percent respectively. For U.S. students, the most common component failed was the ICE; foreign graduates tended to fail the CIS component. Looking at the failure rate at US medical schools overall, it is interesting to note that a small number of schools (6-8) had relatively high fail rates compared to all the rest"

This is interesting because it supports what I'd heard, that most US students who fail are not failing the "communication" portion.
As for this handful of schools apparently producing students incapable of passing the test, it doesn't note what constitutes a "relatively high" fail rate. If the national fail rate is 3%, then is 5% "relatively high?" 7%? It'd be interesting to know. I still doubt it is so high that these schools are collectively accounting for the majority of the 3% nationally. It'd be hard to keep such a thing under wraps.