Step 3 as an intern - my experience

[Bubb Rubb]

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I'm a prelim surgery intern before traipsing off to do radiology, and just started in June of this year. I was required to do Step 3 during this year, so I scheduled it as early as I could, in the last few weeks of September, and now I report here my results and methods.

What I did to study:
- read First Aid for Step 3 front to back over the course of maybe 2 weeks (I was night float for much of the preceding month so had some downtime during my shifts early in the morning)
- did ~500 USMLE World questions in tutor mode
- did the 5 USMLE/NBME/FSMB provided CCS sample cases a bunch of times the night before, not for the information so much as for the sequence and interface

What I'd scored on prior exams and this one:
- Step 1: 229
- Step 2 CK: 243
- Step 2 CS: failed it the first time for communication and interpersonal skills (whoops), passed it the second
- and now, Step 3 227

🙂

This is a public service announcement so that people can know that it's more than possible to pass with a non-marginal score without studying one's brain out, and that taking Step 3 early in internship is definitely possible. I didn't use any supplemental books besides the occasional googling here and there. I came out of the exam feeling I'd missed a lot of questions, but actually liked the CCS cases -- they were kind of fun!

 

[goody]

do you recommend reading kaplan step2 material also?

thank you

 

[nevercold]

I had a similar experience. I read through the chapters in First Aid for Step 3 twice. First time on two cross-country plane flights and then second time the day before the exam. Overall about 16 hrs reading. No practice questions. I looked at the same CCS cd scenarios that they send you and skimmed through the 100 CCS cases in First Aid after Day 1 in prep for Day 2. I got a 214 with pretty minimal prep and about 3 months of internship under my belt.

After doing well on Step 1 and 2 (245, 239) by focusing on a limited number of sources (2 for Step 1, 1 for Step 2), and then passing this exam w/ basically 2 days of studying, I'm convinced that identifying a concrete volume of information and knowing that information is far better than conspicuous consumption of every USMLE study material known to man.