Step 3

The last U.S. Medical Licensing Exam, "Step 3" is a two day affair involving 11 hours of multiple choice questions and 4 hours of cases (though they go pretty fast and are actually fun). Despite that, the test was easier than the first two parts. While the first part involved the basic science, biochemistry, physiology, and mechanisms of disease and the second part involved a broad survey of clinical diagnoses, this part focused on common outpatient clinical problems. Every single question was framed as a real patient interaction, which I appreciated. In my mind, it actually does meet the objective - assessing whether a candidate can reasonably take care of family practice patients. But whether this is the right test to give to everyone, I'm not sure. By now, my pediatrics, gynecology, and psychiatry are pretty rusty, though to be honest, doing an internship in medicine helps a lot. I didn't study much at all (perhaps a handful of evenings) and it wasn't too bad. They say, study 2 months for Step 1, 2 weeks for Step 2, and bring a #2 pencil for Step 3 (though it is now computerized). Anyway I won't say much more about it, but I am glad to be done and back to blogging.