When should I take step 2

[Manual Disimpaction]

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M3 whittling down between IM, anesthesia, derm, EM, Rads. Unsure when I should take step 2 ck and cs without much guidance from school. For step 1 they said take it by this date, for step 2 no hard deadline.

Step 1: 251
Published
Above average but not outstanding grades.

Would appreciate any advice.

 

[BlueJay25]

Most people recommend doing it right after 3rd year, before you start your electives:
The thought process is that you'll be closest the rotations and relevant knowledge as you probably won't be doing on your electives such as OBGYN/Peds/Surg
Also - this will allow you to focus on your electives and be that superstar you want to be without worrying about boards.

Hope this helps!

 

[smokn]

I also wonder this and I'm in a similar boat except I'm for sure on EM. My school doesn't offer EM until the 4th year, so to take STEP 2 before anything means putting off taking your chosen specialty and delaying aways even more. Is this wise?

 

[somethingclever12]

Timing CK with rotations is tough, particularly for people going into specialities that require multiple aways. I will say I took CK immediately after finishing 3rd year rotations - I had family last so I spent a good deal of the rotation studying and then took an additional dedicated 2 weeks after.. and it was the perfect amount of time. Some of my classmates waited to take CK until October/November while trying to balance applications, interviews, etc. and they were miserable.

I know the thinking can sometimes be if you scored high on step 1 wait until after applications are in before taking CK.. but our dean advised us that some programs (not that I've encountered any, so take this with a grain of salt) want CK before they offer you an interview.

TLDR; If you can get it out of the way early, do that.