USMLE 6 Attempt for exams ----- Unfair Policy change by the NBME/USMLE folks

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ARK?? IS THAT YOU???

lol only kidding, i'm guessing you go to a medical school in india?

heh, no and no, but it does explain why I have a soft spot for ark.

remember, you should never ask an indian to elaborate, if that's not what you want :p

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Many deserving people are suffering
Part of the problem here may be that you don't understand what "deserving" and "suffering" mean. Sorry for your troubles, but nobody deserves infinite retakes, and not getting to be a doctor in the US is not suffering.
 
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What are you talking about? You do Uworld questions, look at first aid and do pathoma. You make the connections and answer the questions. A lot of it is basic science and disease processes. How is "personal growth" relevant to answering multiple choice questions at all? I've never had a test that's remotely similar to these questions before. If you can't think critically, why would you be a doctor? You're talking about how it's easy to fail oral exams. I understand that. But how is it relevant to step 1?
 
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What are you talking about? You do Uworld questions, look at first aid and do pathoma. You make the connections and answer the questions. A lot of it is basic science and disease processes. How is what anything you said relevant at all? I've never had a test that's remotely similar to these questions before. If you can't think critically, why would you be a doctor?

Ah. I see. I have not explained it adequately. Unfortunately, that's all I have patience for. You'll just have to settle for me being wrong.
 
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This perfectly describes attempting Step I anywhere close to 6 times.
Unless you have a residency lined up.

No one's debating his situation, though.

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K

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I would love to know what else goes through someone's mind when they're prepping for #6 thinking "ok, I can feel it, this is gonna be my lucky break."
 
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I would love to know what else goes through someone's mind when they're prepping for #6 thinking "ok, I can feel it, this is gonna be my lucky break."

No one's talking about him. I agree with you on this point completely, I was trying to show that passing the step the FIRST TIME might not be easy for everyone and that everyone might not take a failure add seriously. There are still other factors that I didn't address.

I can see you really want to have this conversion, but please don't be as obtuse as an MS 1/2. :)

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Aside from the fact that few people are going to be able to pass a USMLE step if they've had 2-3 prior failures...you're pretty much throwing your money away after that, and holding onto false hope of a different result.

1. Going to be exceedingly difficult to match because of too many USMLE attempts (you're going to be screened out early on in the process and get few, if any interviews).
2. Going to be exceedingly difficult to match because the odds are much higher you will not be able to pass your boards; programs want the highest pass rates possible.
3. Going to be exceedingly difficult to match because programs will think you have underlying problems, which could affect your ability to do your job as a resident.
4. Even if you manage to match into a residency program---can you get a medical license? Can you pass Step 3? Can you pass your boards?
5. Even if you manage to get a medical license---who's going to hire someone who takes 6 tries to pass a step of the USMLE? No way 99.99% of credentialling committees are going to let that go. Maybe a prison?
 
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What are you talking about? You do Uworld questions, look at first aid and do pathoma. You make the connections and answer the questions. A lot of it is basic science and disease processes. How is "personal growth" relevant to answering multiple choice questions at all? I've never had a test that's remotely similar to these questions before. If you can't think critically, why would you be a doctor? You're talking about how it's easy to fail oral exams. I understand that. But how is it relevant to step 1?

You haven't taken Step 1, right? Once you do, you'll see that it's not quite that "hard" to fail (or do poorly with no chance for a retake), even for U.S. med school grads at top schools. I realize we're in SDN world where every poster got a 280+ on their Step 1, but in the real world, not everyone can smoke the test and live to tell the tale. Doesn't mean they're dumb or not capable of becoming physicians. It just means they needed a retake. Note, I said A retake, not multiple retakes.
 
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Thanks for all your sincere thoughts. Well....let me expand a bit more on this.....At times due to a variety of personal problems (family-related-----father's mother's, brother's, sister's illness; work-related pressures and headaches, personal ill health, financial troubles, etc), some students who successfully completed medical school....may at times be unlucky in passing the step.

That does not mean.....they are outright plain dumb or just don't get it!

It is there "Circumstances" that proved to be a barrier in their success. By introspection and rectifying their personal problems, they are all ready to move ahead with a renewed sense of hope. They are all willing to retake the exam. They are willing to give it another GO! But the system has now turned an evil-eye against them.
Pls do suggest how this can be successfully tackled.
Is this like the most ridiculous troll post ever or what?

1. I suggest they reduce it to 4 attempts per component.

2. It is not the inability to pass the exam which would disturb me most about such a candidate or their lack of medical knowledge; it is the pure absence of common sense at taking the exam when you know your scoring is not at the level for it. At this point, I'd suspect that you're just bad at life and should stay away from patients.
 
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You haven't taken Step 1, right? Once you do, you'll see that it's not quite that "hard" to fail (or do poorly with no chance for a retake), even for U.S. med school grads at top schools. I realize we're in SDN world where every poster got a 280+ on their Step 1, but in the real world, not everyone can smoke the test and live to tell the tale. Doesn't mean they're dumb or not capable of becoming physicians. It just means they needed a retake. Note, I said A retake, not multiple retakes.
I like this girl. My retake was because of poor preparation. I've done well for myself this past year in residency.
 
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Maybe I'm being wayyy too strict, but the max attempts for ALL exams combined should be 8. Distribute them any way you'd like. If you get up to attempt 6 on step 1, you should probably realize you don't have enough "chances" to finish out the licensing exams.
 
2. It is not the inability to pass the exam which would disturb me most about such a candidate or their lack of medical knowledge; it is the pure absence of common sense at taking the exam when you know your scoring is not at the level for it. At this point, I'd suspect that you're just bad at life and should stay away from patients.

Yeah. That's the biggest thing to me. Even if you give someone a flier for a first failure...after that...if you don't take the exam seriously enough...I just don't know how to explain that. You shouldn't even think about taking the test again until you are absolutely sure you can pass it.
 
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OP I heard they raised the minimum passing score this year. Now the 6 retake limit is even more unfair! Keep fighting the good fight...
 
OP I heard they raised the minimum passing score this year. Now the 6 retake limit is even more unfair! Keep fighting the good fight...


Lol is this a troll post? Are you being serious? There's so many wrong things about this post I can't even begin.


Edit: also explain how it's unfair
 
Any Idea on why they're limiting retakes. It's a great stream of revenue. Are people just coming in to memorize qs?

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Any Idea on why they're limiting retakes. It's a great stream of revenue. Are people just coming in to memorize qs?

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i hope it's to weed out people who can't hack it. I doubt the test is as easy as some here have stated but if literally all docs have passed it, it can't be impossible. 2-3 tries you can blame on circumstances, bad luck, or not respecting the test. 6 fails and you just aren't good enough. if you are so far below the testing ability of every doctor in the country, you just aren't good enough
 
Any Idea on why they're limiting retakes. It's a great stream of revenue. Are people just coming in to memorize qs?

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Interesting thought - maybe employees of test prep companies trying to add more "authentic" questions to their Qbank?
 
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Interesting thought - maybe employees of test prep companies trying to add more "authentic" questions to their Qbank?
I'd imagine it being freelance, esp IMGs who don't intend on going to the states.

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My thoughts:

This kid probably has a spot lined up (i.e daddy is a PD or some thing like that) and all he has to do is pass all his exams, it's almost a guarantee that he/she went to a foreign school because no US school will let you graduate if you couldn't pass your boards at least in 3rd try. Also, no one on earth would be delusional to actually take any steps past 3rd try with any hopes of actually landing a residency anywhere in the US in any field, unless of course they have a parent who's a PD or have a spot lined up in some other way.
 
You haven't taken Step 1, right? Once you do, you'll see that it's not quite that "hard" to fail (or do poorly with no chance for a retake), even for U.S. med school grads at top schools. I realize we're in SDN world where every poster got a 280+ on their Step 1, but in the real world, not everyone can smoke the test and live to tell the tale. Doesn't mean they're dumb or not capable of becoming physicians. It just means they needed a retake. Note, I said A retake, not multiple retakes.

I just took Step 1 after a hellish mess of a prep period. While I was taking, I could definitely see how people could fail it. Some of those vignettes can be quite subtle.

As an aside, Step 1 felt nothing like the walk in the park that NBME 16 was.
 
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My thoughts:

This kid probably has a spot lined up (i.e daddy is a PD or some thing like that) and all he has to do is pass all his exams, it's almost a guarantee that he/she went to a foreign school because no US school will let you graduate if you couldn't pass your boards at least in 3rd try. Also, no one on earth would be delusional to actually take any steps past 3rd try with any hopes of actually landing a residency anywhere in the US in any field, unless of course they have a parent who's a PD or have a spot lined up in some other way.
What is the point of getting a guaranteed residency if you can't get a medical license? You can't even practice in a prison or an urgent care without a state-issued medical license.

Fail step3 five times and you ain't getting a license from Louisiana no matter how many residencies you complete.
 
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Lol is this a troll post? Are you being serious? There's so many wrong things about this post I can't even begin.


Edit: also explain how it's unfair

Lost in translation I suppose. It is such an outrageous and stupid idea that 6 retakes is unfair that I just didn't know how else to respond other than with sarcasm. Seems like it fell flat ha.
 
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Hell, if I failed the boards six times I'd take it as an excuse to quit medicine and actually have a fun life.
 
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The thing is, I honestly think an intelligent doctor could fail the exam 6 times if English were not their primary language, and that their test score might improve as their English skill improved, as a result of them actually being able to apply their knowledge due to actually understanding what the questions are asking. I went to school with a girl like that in college- she was fresh off the boat from Africa. Year one, we didn't understand two out of three words she was saying. Within two years, she was damn near proficient, and nowadays she doesn't even have an accent.

Maybe the large number of failures is not due to them overestimating their medical knowledge, but rather overestimating their understanding of medical English repeatedly due to having no real opportunity to practice it? I mean, you can practice regular English just by living in an English speaking country for a bit, but you'd have to spend a hell of a lot of time in a hospital to master medical English if you earned your medical degree from a school that uses a different language entirely.
 
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If you don't speak English, why would you try to work in America? I don't get your point.
 
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If you don't speak English, why would you try to work in America? I don't get your point.

Let's see...

Come from a foreign country where you accrue no debt while studying to become a physician, take step exams, do American residency, get paid American physician salary. Seems like a pretty badass deal.
 
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If you don't speak English, why would you try to work in America? I don't get your point.

There are peeps that come to America, don't speak a lick of English, and live in communities/areas where they can solely speak Spanish/German/French for eternity. It isn't unheard of to be honest. After all, if English was required to work in America, SO many people wouldn't have jobs haha.
 
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There are peeps that come to America, don't speak a lick of English, and live in communities/areas where they can solely speak Spanish/German/French for eternity. It isn't unheard of to be honest. After all, if English was required to work in America, SO many people wouldn't have jobs haha.

Yeah, but THIS IS 'MURICA.



Disclosure: I'm South Asian.
 
orlando has lots of areas/stores where everyone just operates in spanish....sure, someone in the store normally can speak english but you have to request it. There is also a large vietnamese community here and we have a few city blocks that speak vietnamese....everything from doctors/restaurants/grocery
 
The thing is, I honestly think an intelligent doctor could fail the exam 6 times if English were not their primary language, and that their test score might improve as their English skill improved, as a result of them actually being able to apply their knowledge due to actually understanding what the questions are asking. I went to school with a girl like that in college- she was fresh off the boat from Africa. Year one, we didn't understand two out of three words she was saying. Within two years, she was damn near proficient, and nowadays she doesn't even have an accent.

Maybe the large number of failures is not due to them overestimating their medical knowledge, but rather overestimating their understanding of medical English repeatedly due to having no real opportunity to practice it? I mean, you can practice regular English just by living in an English speaking country for a bit, but you'd have to spend a hell of a lot of time in a hospital to master medical English if you earned your medical degree from a school that uses a different language entirely.

You may be right it's an language barrier, however don't you think before taking the test you would have read and done a million questions? If you can understand that then the exam shouldn't be much harder. I don't think it's a language thing
 
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Come from a foreign country where you accrue no debt while studying to become a physician, take step exams, do American residency, get paid American physician salary. Seems like a pretty badass deal.

Take the step exams that are written in English so that you can get paid an American physician salary to talk to American patients in not English?
 
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just checking that we all know there is no official language here, right?
 
Yeah that's why every single person here is communicating in the same non-offical language which we also use to take our board exams and to speak with our patients.
 
The working language of a country need not be legislated or recognized by law for people to understand that it is only right for them to master the language before coming. Instead of, say, showing up at medical facilities and requiring said facilities to have interpreters handy.
 
Yeah that's why every single person here is communicating in the same non-offical language which we also use to take our board exams and to speak with our patients.

I don't know where you live but a primary care doc could totally get by in Orlando without speaking english
 
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How'd step 1 go?

It was like a bad trip. It took me two blocks to get into the flow, and I felt like I was guessing on a good portion of the exam. I came out of the exam room a broken man; I feel like I passed, but I'm just hoping I break the average. But people have time and time again that everyone feels like **** after Step 1 and to trust their most recent NBME scores, so I'm hoping that rings true for me.
 
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