Step 3 Experience

I put together this drive folder: https://

drive.google.com/drive/folders/
17wZxA69jDuYucmN62UP7WYZdJ46qzAUH?usp=sharing

Here are my recommendations:

First, the test is 2 days. Part 1 is the STEP1-like

portion, and also the portion with the statistics. Part 2
is more like UWORLD, has no stats, and then you have 13
cases at the end, which are split roughly 50/50 into short
(10 min) and long (20 min) cases.

Part 1:
-- This part is a mix of the questions you see on UWORLD,
some classic STEP1 presentations, and statistics and drug
advertisements.
-- 7-8 blocks of 30-40 questions (can't remember exactly),
took me about 6 hours
For every question, my recommendation is always, always,
always read the final question before reading the whole
stem. It tells you what the question is asking, which
saves a lot of time.
-- Second recommendation, save the multipart drug ad
questions for last. I just skipped them initially, did all
the other questions, then usually had 7-8 minutes left to
work on them. These questions are challenging and somewhat
artificial compared to reading actual drug ads, so the
reasoning is, even if you're really good at stats, you may
still miss some of these. Don't waste time on the front
end and then sacrifice questions on regular topics you
have a much better chance of answering because you run out
of time. If you're going to run out of time, run out of
time on the harder, toss-up drug ad questions.

Resources:
—- UWORLD of course
—- Look through my STEP1 pharmacology only file. Don't
read it all. Just look at the mechanisms of common drugs
so you have them in the front of your mind if they ask
about them. They don't really ask about very exotic drugs.
It's more commonly used drugs.
—- Read through my STEP1 stats only file. All of it is
valuable and a quick refresher. Even the ethical scenarios
will give you a good flavor for the actual test, as I got
several ethical scenarios on the test. I did not do the
UWORLD stats review, but stats are a strength of mine. If
you read the answers to the stats questions in UWORLD, you
will learn a lot that way.
—- 2 days before your test, read through the First AID
Rapid Review. Read through one time, then cover the answer
and see if you can remember the thing on the right based
on the clue on the left. I would read through it this way
4-5 times during the 2 days before your test. It will give
you quite a few questions on "classic" STEP1 presentations
and associations with a pretty minimal amount of effort.
It's the definition of high yield.

Part 2:
-- These questions are like UWORLD clinical questions,
minimal STEP1 content, no stats.
-- 6 blocks of about 40 questions
-- 13 cases, split about 50/50 into short (10 min) and
long (20 min) cases
-- For the question blocks, UWORLD is all you need. There
are no stats at all and minimal STEP1 content so this will
seem easier compared to Part 1.
For the cases, just do the UWORLD cases. I have included
my notes file, which is incomplete. I would have started
it sooner, but it took me a while to figure out how to
approach the cases. You can continue working on it if you
want. It helped me quickly review the cases and I looked
over it the day before I took Part 2 (the day in between
Parts 1 and 2). What I summarized for each case that I did
is essentially all you need to remember going into the
cases.
-- The cases end early when you do what you are supposed
to do and diagnose the person. It's much better for them
to end early than to drag on. Usually, they only drag on
when the system is wanting you to do something specific
and you can't figure out what that is.
-- I actually did the cases really fast. I think I did 3.5
hours-worth in <2 hours. You will see. You have experience
as a physician so if you have done practice on the cases,
you get into a good rhythm where you are like, let's order
the test that will show what this person has. For example,
guy is a smoker and has increased hoarseness and
difficulty swallowing. Order a laryngoscopy. He has a
squamous cell carcinoma. Refer him to surg onc. Case over.
Lady comes to the ED with nausea/vomiting, rigid abdomen
on exam, order a CT, it shows free air, giver her Abx and
refer her to gen surg. Case over.
-- I did not make a follow up for any patient and it
didn't seem to matter at all.
I did not do the self assessments at all and did very well
on the exam. I’m not super smart. I don’t knock these
exams out of the park. Just follow my method above. Do you
need to know any of this? Not really. You probably have
specialty-specific boards. It’s a game and the name of the
game is know what they’re going to ask you, which is what
my recommendations are geared towards.

Reddit source: https://www.reddit.com/r/Residency/

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-- T&S
-- CBC
-- HBV
-- RPR
-- HIV
-- Rubella
-- UCx (Urine Culture)
-- Pap if needed
-- GC/CT and HCV if high risk
-- Can offer carrier screening for CF and
hemoglobinopathies (Hgb electrophoresis)
-- Can offer aneuploidy screening which is a more complex
discussion and beyond the scope of the exam