Moving to the Land of Opportunities

It may be the dream of most of the Medical graduates to do residency in USA.There are lots of Indian doctors trying with USMLE after their graduation.

But it is not so easy.you have to put in lots of hard work ,Patience and time because they will assess your over all knowledge not in the theorytical way what is asked here but in a more practical and application style.

The Licensing Exam to do residency in USA ,popularly known as the USMLE- United States Medical Licensing Examination.It includes three steps.

1) USMLE STEP-1:
It assesses whether medical school students or graduates can apply important concepts of the sciences basic to the practice of medicine.US medical students typically take Step 1 at the end of the second year of medical school. Graduates of international medical schools must also take Step 1 if they want to practice in the US.

The test is standardized and allows medical students to be directly compared with each other on a national basis.Performance on this test is one of the selection criteria used in the NRMP match program for residencies.A good score on this test makes the student get in to residency with ease.

2) USMLE STEP -2 :

The STEP-2 examination has got two parts.The USMLE Step 2 is generally taken
during the 4th year of medical school by medical students.


-First part is in the Multiple choice format and called the STEP2 CK - step 2
Clinical Knowledge and

-Second Part is the Step 2 CS - CLinical Skills Examination- Practical Examination.

STEP2 CK - The exam is a nine-hour single-day computer-based test composed of eight 46-question sets (368 multiple-choice questions in total). Each section is one hour long. The test taker is permitted 45 minutes, in total for the whole day, for the purpose of breaks that can only be taken between sections. There is a 15 minute tutorial at the beginning of the exam, which the test-taker can choose to skip, and have the time added to the break time.
If the taker finishes any section before the alloted 1 hour time limit, the remainder of the time is added to break time. The test is administered at the Prometric testing sites around the world. Scoring is reported in 2 digit and 3 digit scores.The examinee is required to get 75 and 184 scores to pass the exam in 2 digit and 3 digit scores respectively.

STEP 2 CS -The USMLE Step 2CS exam consists of a series of patient encounters in which the examinee must see the simulated patient or SPs, take a history and do a physical examination, determine differential diagnoses, then write a patient note based on his/her determinations.

The examinee is allowed 15 minutes to complete each encounter and 10 minutes for the Patient note for a single patient encounter. Over the course of an 8-hour exam day, the examinee completes 12 such encounters.

USMLE Step 2 CS replaced the former ECFMG Clinical Skills Assessment (CSA) effective June 14, 2004. The last administration of the ECFMG Clinical Skills Assessment (CSA) took place on April 16, 2004.

FOr thakind the STEP 2 CS Exam , one has to travel to USA.Currently the CS Exam is held over 5 testing centers called the Clinical Skills Evaluation Center (CSEC) throughout the USA :

1)Atlanta, Georgia
2)Chicago, Illinois
3)Houston, Texas
4)Los Angeles, California
5)Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

USMLE STEP- 3:

The main focus of Step 3 is to ensure that physicians can carry out the practice of medicine without supervision. Most of the questions presented, but not all, deal with ambulatory care.The most common, "high-impact" cases are tested. Step 3 is generally considered to be the "easiest" of the exams, but this assumes a strong internship and good preparation for steps 1 and 2.

USMLE Step 3

The basics of USMLE Step 3


The main focus of Step 3 is to ensure that physicians can carry out independent practice of medicine without supervision. Most of the questions presented deal with ambulatory care. The most common "high-impact" cases are tested.Step 3 is generally considered to be the "easiest" of the exams.

USMLE Step 3 Question Formats :

There are three question formats on this step:
Single Item,
Multiple Item Sets and
Cases.

The Single Item questions are the standard "multiple choice" single best answer questions. There are generally 4-5 answers to select from.

The Multiple Item Sets questions are multiple choice, single best answer questions, all based on a single patient vignette. Again, each question has a single correct answer (although other answers may be "partially correct"). The questions are designed to be answered by themselves - the order in which do the questions is not important.

The Case-based questions are designed to be answered in sequential order. Skipping questions can be bad news: the cases often progress in an orderly fashion, and each question may rely on information given in preceding questions. Again, these are multiple-choice, single best answer questions.

For more information on Step 3 question formats

visit: http://www.usmle.org/step3