Studying for step 3

[Poety]

what books did you guys use and how long did you study? Im going to register for a November date - so please do tell!

Hope all are well and that things are sailing smoothly!

poety ~

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[fiatslug]

Boards & Wards, and did all the Kaplan book questions. Also, there's a prep book (can't remember the name--someone will know) that has Clinical Case Scenario prep--it's a thin little book, like the Vignette books--well worth a read. Definitely save time to practice with the CCS format with the practice tests. I did much better on Step 3 than 1 or 2--the CCS part is actually kind of fun, and by the 2nd day, you're ready for something different!

Like Step 2, Step 3 is essentially Virtual Medicine Clinic From Hell. Very career-affirming.

 

[whopper]

Kaplan & First Aid.

I haven't used USMLEworld but I heard a lot of good things about it.

Lots of this is personal preference. Anecdotally I found Crush & Strong Medicine for USMLE III not very effective (though I know several who disagree) because it was too little information, and much of the Appleton & Lange stuff useless.

I was doing questions from A&L USMLE Step II-Internal Medicine book and was getting about 60% of the questions wrong and I thought I was a dead man (at that time I only had a month left before the exam). I then had several IM doctors check out the questions and they told me they couldn't answer half of them either. The book was too hard--& it gave me the biggest mind screw (I almost had a panic attack--I thought I was prepared then this book made me think I was dead).

Some words of advice: Don't gun for the exam if you don't have to, especially if you're a first year. I felt I learned a heck of a lot of medicine after doing my med rotation, and then applying that knowledge to what I did in inpatient psychiatry.

2nd--if you're gunning for USMLE to get a liscence for moonlighting--wait & think. Are you ready to do moonlighting? I didn't think I was ready to do so until the end of my 2nd year. I'm still not doing it now because I didn't take Step III yet (I'm planning on Nov)--but in hindsight--no way was I prepared to do it my first year-especially if doing the moonlighting means you're on your own.

 

[Anasazi23]

I used USMLE world, Crush Step III, and familypractice.com has quite a few radiographic images with questions and explanations that helped somewhat. I've been reading Boards & Wards on and off for the better part of 4 years (during rotations) and did lots of Kaplan Qbank questions from the book.