I was stricken today with my Step1 score. After months of sweat, blood, and tears, I disappointed my family, mentors, and myself with a score of 201! This is beyond failure to me comparing to my OUTSTANDING success throughout my academic life up to this point!!!

What matters now is do I even have a chance to match for residency in general surgery? To add insult to injury, I am an IMG from a middle-eastern med school.

On the plus side, I had 12 months of clinical internship in the middle-east, and I’ve been a clinical research fellow in a highly regarded institution in the US. So far, I have 2 publications with more coming on the way. I also had the opportunity to present one of the abstracts in a surgical meeting of a highly regarded organization in the US. I know I will get a strong LoR from the chair of my department (which is my mentor) and at least one of the other consultants.

I am currently preparing for step2 CK as I was planning to take it sometime in Sep/Oct. Could a high score in step2 CK hide the shame of my step1 score? Should I take more time preparing for step2 CK and maybe postpone it for few months? Or are my dreams are down the drain already?

I (almost) lost hope and seriously thinking of dramatically changing my plans and switching to another country!

Thank you in advance and wish you all the best