Took Step 3 on Mon/Tues my experience

[jmdeer]

This is what I studied

First Aid
USMLE World- Averaged around 64 %
NBME Assesment exam- Score=480

The test was hard. The answer choices were very similar.Dont think I was sure of any question I answered. Too be honest I dont think studying helped much

The CCS Cases were fairly easy. Here are the ones I can remember

DKA
Chest Pain- anxiety related
Crohns
Cholelithiasis
A Peds case I screwed up. Possibly Minimal Change Disease
UTI in a Pregnancy (both undiagnosed)
Sqamous Cell Lung Cancer presenting as pneumonia

I hope I passed I am definitley worried

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[mgdsh]

This is what I studied

First Aid
USMLE World- Averaged around 64 %
NBME Assesment exam- Score=480

The test was hard. The answer choices were very similar.Dont think I was sure of any question I answered. Too be honest I dont think studying helped much

The CCS Cases were fairly easy. Here are the ones I can remember

DKA
Chest Pain- anxiety related
Crohns
Cholelithiasis
A Peds case I screwed up. Possibly Minimal Change Disease
UTI in a Pregnancy (both undiagnosed)
Sqamous Cell Lung Cancer presenting as pneumonia

I hope I passed I am definitley worried

Could you also please post how long you studied for (ie over what time period and how many hours per day.) Also how many of the USMLE world questions were you able to get through. Thanks and GL

 

[person2004]

I took my Step 3 last week too. I looked at this site for advice before my exam so I think I should contribute my experience.

I didn't have much time to prepare since I've been on medicine wards and ICU for the past 4-5 months. I subscribed to USMLE world with the intention of doing all the questions. I ended up doing about 500 questions averaging 55 to 65 percent most of the time with 45 and 80 thrown in there too. I think the variation had a lot to do with a significant number of poorly written questions. Anyway, I was short on time as many of you will be so I had to decide between doing the other 800 questions or studying a book. I decided to devote my entire last 5 days of preparation to first aid for step 3. I think it was the way to go because I got many answers right because first aid said what i needed to know very clearly and i read it right before the test.

I also didn't think the questions were all that bad on the actual exam. I feel pretty good about it. No score yet of course, but I'm confident enough to come on here and recommend first aid. I had heard that it wasn't nearly as good as the step 1 version, but I disagree. I pretty much knew all the H&P yields diagnosis stuff already from my steps 1 and 2, but I got some good review of what tests to order, interpretation, and drug choices. If you are comfortable with the presentation of different diseases and can focus on the tests and Rx, it's really not much material to cover.

Anyway, doing some questions is important for getting in the swing of things and getting your speed down, etc. but it just isn't as high yield as first aid.

For the cases, I did almost all of the cases on USMLE World and went over all of them in first aid a couple of times. They were mostly easy. The presentations really are as obvious as they seem on the practice sources, so it's all about knowing what tests to order and treatments to order a specialist to do.

I studied for about 3 hours 3-4 times a week for two weeks then for about 6 hours a day on the weekend before my exam. It wasn't bad. That's coming from a background of finishing 11 months of a prelim medicine internship, but I was by no means the know it all of the intership. Just an average schmo hating intern year.

I don't know if this is helpful at all so I'll shut the heck up.

 

[Seriously1234]

hi...i also just took step 3. i am btwn med school and residency (yes, it can be done and with minimal stress) so i studied for about 10 days total, avg about 6 hours a day. i did FA and USMLEworld. avg about 63% on UW and I did about 2/3 of the questions. i actually thought the UW CCS cases were pretty good.

my impression: i thought overall it was hard. just like all the other steps though, there were a lot of easy questions and then a lot of ??? questions. i don't feel like anything else i could have studied would have helped at all. much of it is outpatient management of random complaints (derm, ortho) that wouldn't have been in any review book. i felt as prepared as i could have been.

as for the ccs, i totally screwed up one of my cases-didn't even get to enter a dx (though i knew what it was from the start), and i am sure had it been real life my patient would have been dead and/or i would have been fired. aside from that they went ok. i agree with previous post-the diagnoses are typically obvious. i would review the cases in FA and or UW for the common tests and treatments to order.

one other random thought, i was expecting more pharm (antibiotics, cardiac meds) and there really wasn't much more than on step 2 for example.

hope this is helpful to someone! good luck.

 

[phatfarm]

I also wanted to post my Step 3 experience. I just took it a week ago. 6/11, 6/12. Overall, I felt it went very well. I started reading Crush 2 months ago and went through it very slowly, maybe 1 hr a day. I also got FA but read through it once and didn't care for it. I also had access to Strong Medicine and thought it was ok. I went through all of UW and had an average of 55%. It was extremely discouraging as I was getting in the 40's in the week preceding my actual exam. Not the best feeling.

I thought the actual exam was easier than UW. There were a lot of easy answers. there were some questions where I had to completely guess, but only a few of those. Of course, there were some questions where you can narrow the answers down to 2 answers and I just flipped a coin.

I finished all blocks early with anywhere from 5-19 mins to spare. I took breaks on the 1st day after each block just for a few minutes to rest my eyes and stretch.

On the 2nd day, the questions got a little harder but the CCS section was a welcome break. All cases, I pretty much knew all the diagnoses from the HPI. All cases ended early and I actually finished the exam at 1:30 pm (3 hrs early!). I didn't "kill" anyone.

Tips:

Know stuff like: what to do for HIV exposure and who gets it. Post HBV exposure and who gets it. Post tetanus exposure and who gets it. Post rabies exposure and when to give RBIV.

Finish UW if you can but don't let it stress you out. Read all the answers carefully and try to pick up at least one learning point from each explanation. Definitely do the USMLE questions on the CD. You may see a similar question on the exam. In fact, I felt I saw many similar questions. Relax, it's not that bad.

 

[Dramkinola]

I took mine the first monday, tuesday of june (4th, 5th?)...

I thought it was had too... for some reason the second day's MCQ's felt harder... maybe i was just tired...

My first advice is the USMLEworld's CCS may be a bit much... I read Blueprints little CCS book... it has like 15 cases, and it was enough...

One case I got, that I remember was a young african american infant on TMP-SMX with vomitting, et al... stop the sulfas, it's G6PD deficiency...
the other one's were MI, UTI, and an ectopic pregnancy with fetal death and uterine bleeding... can't remember the others, but they were straightforward...

I did like 5-600 USMLEworld questions (55-60% scores) and read crush once before starting questions... I really don't have a clue how i did... but I think I passed the CCS cases...

 

[person2004]

Ok, well I thought I should add a follow up post. I got my score (218) on the third saturday after my exam. I did just above the average on every section pretty much and maxed out the points on the clinical cases with the preparation described above. Goodluck everybody.