I have a General CCS question for people who have taken it.

Currently,
UW SA: passed, ~200 a week ago
UW ?s: ~55% - 100% done
NBME - to be taken
USMLE CD - got over 70% right on all blocks -- direct avg.

CCS - I've gone through all the cases on the UW review. I'm currently at about #30 in the Simulated cases.

- I'm noticing with scoring, I'm getting
Orders 100%,
PE 100%,
Diagnostic Tests about 90%- sometimes forget one or two things,
Therapy about ~90%,
Diagnosis ~95%,
Monitoring ~70%,
Timing ~80%

a few times I get just about everything, and the case won't end because my DOC was 2nd line (i.e. I gave Docusate 1st, instead of waiting for metamucil to work, lol). Or I run out of time before my culture comes back, still on a Broad Spectrum; When I get to the monitoring I finish up at the 5 min page.

I have 3 Days till Exam.. I plan on continuing working on this till the exam. Finally my Question. Is this something I need to WORRY about?? How strict is the scoring on CCS. If you for example completely miss the Diagnosis or Treatment, but get everything else, do the points you could have gained in the other sections still help you pass that case???

All insight is VERY MUCH appreciated.

ccs count for more or less 20% on the final score.

if you will finish all cases in UW software and practice cases on USMLE software you will be ok.
You are going to find cases that are very very similar to UW software.
Even if you are going to kill 1 or 2 patients you can score great in CCS part of the exam.
You must pay attention to the important things like:
transfer the patient to the correct unit,
emergency orders (don't do complete physicals as first thing in MI case, but start monitor, cardiac enzymes, aspirin...this kind of stuff)
give a reasonable therapy (do not order brain biopsy and surgery for a patient with headache)

the step3 exam is EASY, this is the truth

good luck

That seems a little too easy.. I surely don't want to underestimate it! Thanks for the reply! It always help take a little of the edge off..

i'm not telling you to underestimate it, I'm telling you that the CCS part is simple and count just for 20% of the final score.

I'm telling you that you could KILL 2 patients, and you can still pass the ccs
part with an high score, (cause that is what happened to me).

The questions part is very similar to step2ck, so if you did good on step 2, and if you did finish 100% of uw questions, it's easy to pass step3.

all the best!
edited by paco23788184 on 8/19/2011