step 3 pointer of people who passed

[onlyortho]

hey all,
what did you all that passed do for the ccs cases on the actual exam
FA says that do a physical exam for any scenario as the first order...or did you guyd do it on a case by case basis. for examle mva patient gets IV access and trauma series before physical exam????

how many cases ended early for you guys who passed 7/9 or 6/9 or 8/9???

is the ccs section graded seperately from he mcq and score combined so that you would have to pass both in order to pass???

if you can let me know that would be great

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[Brian Pavlovitz]

hey all,
what did you all that passed do for the ccs cases on the actual exam
FA says that do a physical exam for any scenario as the first order...or did you guyd do it on a case by case basis. for examle mva patient gets IV access and trauma series before physical exam????

how many cases ended early for you guys who passed 7/9 or 6/9 or 8/9???

is the ccs section graded seperately from he mcq and score combined so that you would have to pass both in order to pass???

if you can let me know that would be great

I did the CCS cases on a case-by-case basis. Since I didn't have any trauma cases, I didn't need to do IV access or anything before the actual physical exam.

I would limit your exam. For example, a musculoskeletal exam is overkill in someone who comes in and is complaining of shortness of breath.

The one thing I did more of this time as opposed to the first time I took (and failed!) the exam was to do a lot of patient counseling. Without going into details, one of my patients ended up having a cancer diagnosis. So, after doing a workup (CT, fluid cytology), I ordered "patient counseling, new cancer diagnosis" from the dropdown menu when I typed in "patient counseling". This is where using the CD will help out--you'll find out all the options you have to choose from. Likewise for a hypertensive or diabetic. It never hurts to order "patient counseling, exercise" or "patient counseling, low fat, low sodium diet" or something like that.

Another thing I did differently was to admit the patient to another service (change patient location). As an example, if you have someone with symptoms of an MI, you might admit to the ICU after doing an initial lab and EKG workup, and order continuous cardiac monitoring.

All of my cases ended early, so I took that as a sign that I did the minimum that needed to be done. Some ended earlier than others, but all ended before the allotted time.

Hope this helps. Good luck, and relax!