#Reviews of doctors in training step 2 professional
I see an opportunity to get back to what matters: helping students reach their individual personal and professional goals in medicine, engage in the preclinical curricula that lead up to Step 1, effectively tell their stories to residency programs, and stay focused on their overall well-being. 26, Step 1 scoring will change from a numeric grade to pass-fail, so the big question is, “Now what?” How should students shift their thinking and preparation for the residency program applications that determine where they’ll spend the next several years of their medical training? Yet, it was hard for her to shake the feelings of incompetence, and they were even impacting her clinical performance.įor so long, medical students have worried about the impending hurdle of Step 1 - a full-day exam that has loomed from the beginning of medical school because it has carried so much weight in residency programs' assessments of the many applications they receive. I wanted her to see the gifts that I saw in her: her passion for social justice, her empathic communication skills, her clear potential for becoming a doctor whom her patients would adore and trust. I noted that she was more than a number and that the test by itself was a poor predictor of later clinical performance and the physician she'd become. I talked about how her Step 1 score did not define her. “I don’t think I’ll be able to match in OB-GYN, which I’ve been loving.” Emma’s sadness and defeat were palpable. “I was testing higher,” she confided quietly about her many practice exams. She hadn’t done as well as she’d hoped on Step 1 of the United States Medical Licensing Examination - that high-stakes test covering key components of medical knowledge - despite spending more than 10 weeks preparing. She wanted to work through what she was experiencing with me, her career advisory dean at the George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences. The opinions expressed by the author do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the AAMC or its members.Įmma* and I were talking one day a couple of months into her third-year clerkships. The daylong exam - usually taken at the end of second year of medical school or the start of the third - assesses the ability to understand and apply foundational concepts related to health, disease, and treatment options. Katherine Chretien, MD, has been advising students who are concerned about what the upcoming change to Step 1 means.Įditor’s note: Step 1 of the United States Medical Licensing Examination is the first of three exams required for medical licensing in the United States.