Skip Intro said:
I'm a little anxious, but definitely not as much as when I sat for Step 1.
I should have been.
I don't know what others' experience has been, but I think I just got totally reamed. Maybe it's the standard experience, maybe it was just my bad luck. But, I had a good 2 dozen questions that had options to choose from "a" to "o" - that's right, they gave you
15 options to choose from. And, out of those you could only pick out maybe 7 or 8 that were
obviously wrong.
This test, at least for me, was FAR harder than Step 1. And, I am surprised that the feedback I've gotten from a lot of friends has been how much easier it is. The majority of my questions were a full screen-full of text. I'd say about 70% of mine had lab values to review.
Some things you better know cold before you walk in there, and topics that I had several questions on:
- pregnant woman presenting with any various presentations of abdominal pain (e.g., bilious vomiting, sharp sudden onset, etc.)
- preventive medicine (e.g., what in a given list is the most significant risk factor for a particular disease, who should get vaccinated, etc.)
-
HIV!!!! (**** me! I didn't think they were going to test so heavily on this! I barely reviewed it, and it was ALL over the place! Step 1 was totally misleading because I remember very few questions on HIV/AIDS)
- calculating sensitivity/specificity for various tests
- kid who can't bear weight on a leg (I got about 10 of those)
- inadequately treated hypertension, in all its manifestations
- hypersensitivity (i.e., types I - IV and what causes them)
-
all the vasculitides (again, I had probably 10-15 questions just on that)
- where the heart murmurs are, what they are, what they mean, and what the "next best thing" to do is
- what to do if you find a solitary thyroid nodule
- bleeding from the vagina, and all its causes (and what you should do to investigate/treat)
- bleeding from the rectum, and all its causes (and what you should do to investigate/treat)
- those DAMN autosomal recessive/dominant disorders (the bane of my existence)
Also, what was
not heavily tested (and that I spent too much time reviewing):
- drugs for bugs (a few questions, but VERY straightforward)
- derm
- surgery
- neuro (a few lesions here and there, but mostly very easy to pick out - nothing bizarre)
Let's just put it this way, I will be seriously surprised if I broke 200 on this test let alone passed it.
Good luck to everyone who hasn't taken it yet. Just be prepared to do a LOT of reading. I nearly ran out of time on every section. Like Step 1 after I had a bad first block, I thought I'd have a couple of easier blocks to make up for it. NOPE. This test was a monster!!! It's extremely long and tiring, and I'm just about ready to go and drink myself into a coma right now...
🙁
-Skip