when to take step 3?

[Jaluv]

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The clerkship/program director at my school sent out an email a while back to all peds applicants and told us that after the match, we should apply for a license in Connecticut (or some state that will grant a license as a graduating med student) and register to take step 3 and get it out of the way. Is there anyone out there who took step 3 right away before starting internship, or would recommend it?

 

[edmadison]

The clerkship/program director at my school sent out an email a while back to all peds applicants and told us that after the match, we should apply for a license in Connecticut (or some state that will grant a license as a graduating med student) and register to take step 3 and get it out of the way. Is there anyone out there who took step 3 right away before starting internship, or would recommend it?

I'm not sure, but I think you have to have started residency to take step 3, or maybe just have graduated.

Ed

 

[Bernardo_11]

I'm not sure, but I think you have to have started residency to take step 3, or maybe just have graduated.

Ed

If I could do it over again, I'd take it just after intern year. You'll learn more than enough peds that you will not need to study for that section and a lot of the other specialties will be somewhat fresh in your mind. Also, internship, in whatever field it be, teaches a lot of universal medical concepts like fluid replacement, assessing a sick patient (ie ABC's), and just the thoughtwork in writing orders for patients (which is useful for the computer based simulations). I ended up taking it close to the end of my third year... (yeah yeah, I know I was dumb)... and well, peds was definitely a piece of cake, obstetrics wasn't too bad, but a lot of the adult medicine questions required more review. Basically try to take it before your halfway point of second year.... or you'll be reviewing a lot of stuff.

Otherwise, step 3 is by far the easiest of the three steps... after all the medical exposure you have a lot of the questions seem like common sense.. no joke!