Why the Step I Exam Should Matter to You

STEP I STEP I There’s a reason I wrote it all in capital letters: becauseit’s the greatest fear of all kinds of medical students. This testengenders a huge amount of anxiety, because of its importance forresidency. To get to medical school, you’ve overcome a huge number ofacademic challenges -- the USMLE exam is no different. As a tutor, I’verealized a key to success is adopting the proper mindset for the testand for test preparation. I’m here to provide some perspective and tips from a student who hasbeen through it to keep things sane. I hope that this blog postserves as a good mental base for you as we work through the next partsof your test preparation. Shifting Your Perspective: Barrier vs. Stage Every extremely successful student I’ve ever tutored has undergone thesame mental gymnastics, and I’m asking you to perform them for theUSMLE. When many students begin, they see the test as a wall standingin front of them blocking them from seeing patients and getting theresidency that they want. Instead, see the USMLE exam as a stage whereyou can demonstrate what you know. The test is challenging, but thewriters don’t have anything personally against you, or any otherstudent. All they want to do is give you an opportunity to demonstratewhat you know. Think about each question as a little challenge, justlike a patient, that is fun to unpick and understand. Medical students love brainteasers, in many ways, it is why we do medicine. Focus onthat aspect of the test, and take joy in mental gymnastics ablyperformed. How the Step I Exam Can Help You The Step exam can also serve as a fantastic tool for learning illnessscripts, clinical knowledge, and scientific fundamentals. At somelevel, the things on the step exam are just trivia, but taken moreseriously, they can be very important. Out of all the possible thingsthat could be tested, they chose this small set of facts. The â€Å"trivia†actually represents either important clinical knowledge that you don’tyet have, or captures some important experiment that serves as a modelfor further research. an important way of thinking. Example 1: Diagnosis As you go through clinical training, you’ll become familiar with theidea of illness scripts, the â€Å"classic† presentations of a disease,along with the group most commonly affected by the disease. Theâ€Å"patients† on Step I are the most classic illness scripts, andstarting to think about these now can be a useful tool for the most common disease presentations. Step I is mostly about diagnosis, sobeing able to make these classic diagnoses is very important to doingwell on the test, but will also help you in a clinical setting. Example 2: Research For students interested in research, preparation for the test is veryuseful in clearly defining terms. One of the major problems I’veencountered in research is that many of the terms are somewhatsquirrelly; with definitions rarely exact. My studying forced me to bevery precise in my language and definitions. As an MD/PhD, I’mcurrently working in a genetics lab doing research. I’m much morecomfortable with the lingo because I worked so hard during my Steppreparation to get the precise terms into my head. Without Step, Iwouldn’t have done this! Parting thoughts At the end of the day, it’s really just a number.When I started taking the test, it was surprisingly anticlimactic.Getting the score back was the same way. My heart got a little flurrybefore I opened the e-mail, I gave a little whoop when I checked myscore it, and then that was it. You’ll get a number, that starts witha two followed by a digit between zero and 7. That number isn’t areflection of how good of a doctor you are, or how well you’ll handlepatients, or even how much you know. If you’ve studied your hardestfor the test, then things will go well for you! Are you interested in learning more about ways to prepare for the Step I exam? ; Check out the introduction to this blog post by following the link below, and stay tuned for additional chapters on the Step I exam from Mac! USMLE Step I Exam: Introduction