CS Experience

CS May 29 (Chicago)

Hi Docs :)

Few hours ago I got back from my cs exam, it was so exhausting that I slept many hours after coming home, but I didn't want to wait long to post my experience because I was inspired and encouraged by others' posting theirs after exam, so here is it...

I was late there but I made it at 8:00 sharp, that was bizarre, thank God I was just 5 min before everybody entered the room for instructions prior to the exam :D

First we left our personal stuff in the locker room, and had a little ziploc small plastic bag for stuff I might need, energy bars, tooth paste and tooth brush and little listerine (OCD), also some girl's stuff :) oh and my allergy pills, gosh! I had an incident in one encounter room later on so funny. Anyway no watches, no phones, and the little plastic bag had to be inspected as well, also they let you carry a bottle of water or soda. the lockers fit a big backpack so bring your small carry on luggage if you want.

Well, most of the people in my group were IMGs so at least I was happy to see that I wasn't the only one with an accent :) , so, instructional video was played and we were able to check the instruments before starting the encounters. Bathroom please and went on line.

I was taking my time to put all my mnemonics before entering the room because I know I will get nervous and forget all Qs to ask so just to be safe I took extra seconds, wrote my "LIQOR AAA - PAM HUGS FOSS" and then went on.

As everybody knows we are not allowed to share the cases so I wont break the rules but believe me, somehow the people doing the FA got the best clue about the cases coming, in general you can manage all 12 cases just by practicing FA and knowing all DDx from this book.

I had some special patients, like 3, I would say, the rest were very nice and most of them very cooperative, I don't know about english in other cities but Chicago's english is very easy to understand so that is not a problem at all.

On my last 2 patients I was so tired :( , so, get a good snack on your 2nd break cause you will need the energy.

Good Luck to everybody.

Grazie.
"almalatina"



My Last Advice and Tips for People preparing this Exam
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As I said before, I don't know if I passed this exam but (knocked on wood) if I was going to take it again I would do this:

1) Learn by heart all minicases and mainly all Diff Dx for each CC from FA. I made my list of DDx 5 days before my exam, it was a good tool I used at last, hopefully it worked.
http://www.sendspace.com/file/sa83ue

2) Do your own Patient Encounter Repertory, I did mine with the words that were more easy to pronounce for me and in the way I feel comfortable, here is my format but you can modify it and do your version. http://www.sendspace.com/file/sa83ue
And here is my blue sheet model I made to organize my encounter. http://www.sendspace.com/file/bafn6s

3) After you learned all the Pt Encounter Qs to ask, Learn how to answer the probably Challenging Qs and your Closure which includes: Summary (recall HPI) + Test to ask and finally your most probably Dx, explain it in a simple way. This is a little bit of mine...
http://www.sendspace.com/file/ebfn8f

4) Learn also how to do the Counseling for many situations like the alcoholic pt, the promiscuous pt, the smoker, etc. I found out through kaplan workshop that we can't always do counseling, for example in an emergency situation, the sp told me that the counseling wasn't in the checklist cause this was an ER case, funny thing huh? and I was so concerned about it.

5) Once you got all these previous steps, start doing your PN with the information from FA, just go over the cases or even better have somebody to read the info to you, write it down on your blue sheet and do your PN, for every one of the 31 cases (FA 2007).
Have a normal PN known first and after that do it for every Case.
Here is my Sample for PN: http://www.sendspace.com/file/z0ftlu
And here the Blank Patient Notes to practice: http://www.sendspace.com/file/qftehv

6) Now is SHOWTIME!!! Get your SP friend and practice with another person taking the exam, take turns as a doc and sp, this is good to time yourself and also to practice your acting skills, it was kind of embarrasing for me at the beginning but after 6 cases I felt more confident and cool about it :)

Everyone has its own way to study but if these tips and sources can help one person I will be happy I shared them with you guys. GOOD LUCK!

Grazie.
"almalatina"

Derived from/ Original Source: http://medicaltalk.net/Thread-usmle-step-2-cs-experience-clinical-skills-examination

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