I'm currently completing a fellowship in geriatrics, only for 1 year. Med school made me realize that I learn best by just burning through THOUSANDS of Qbank questions, then trying to understand concepts from the explanations by doing a bit of extra reading if necessary. I also used the Board Basics book to brush up on high-yield points, but I've never been able to study well by simply reading things or highlighting or taking notes from books. I credit how well I did on the real ABIM to studying all my incorrect answers, and just doing a TON of questions. Overall, I liked Uworld somewhat better than MKSAP, although my scores on both Qbanks were pretty bad. I did not attend any kind of prep course or review. I also took messy, poorly organized notes on most of the questions and topics I got incorrect. In total, I used Uworld and MKSAP (which my program bought for us since intern year), and I completed both Qbanks, then also did most of the incorrect answers on each. However, given my record of success with the USMLEs, I trusted that 3 months of intense studying would be enough.
To add to my fear, until about 2 months prior to the ABIM, I had barely touched MKSAP. So when it came time for me to study for the ABIM, I was nervous that karma was going to show me that I should have taken the ITEs more seriously.
My residency program didn't have any penalties for not doing well on the ITEs, which is probably why I didn't take them seriously, and I was always really busy with work and other stuff (wedding plans, fellowship applications, etc.) right before the exams. I don't even remember what my scores were, probably because I basically chose answers almost at random just to get them over with.
I had not taken any of my ITEs seriously during residency. I credit my Step 1 score with helping me get the residency interviews I wanted, and ultimately allowing me to match to my first choice.įinally getting to the ABIM, this was also my first attempt and I was nervous that I wasn't prepared enough. My scores seem to get a bit worse as the importance of the exams decreased, which is how I'd want it to be. Most importantly, my Step 1 score was 252. I was also glad to be able to pass all my exams (including shelf exams) on the first attempt, and I scored fairly well on all of them. I was even able to (unofficially) live in Canada while crossing the border daily to go to work in Buffalo. After 4 years of living far from home and moving around a lot during med school for various clinical rotations, I wanted to be close to family and friends. I chose this program because it was as close to home (Southern Ontario) as possible for me, and I'm very glad I did. I also matched to my first choice which was University at Buffalo internal medicine in 2016. I was happy to have matched to residency on the first try soon after graduation. Unfortunately I did not make myself competitive enough to attend medical school in Canada, but I was successful throughout school at MUA (Nevis, West Indies). I'm a Canadian citizen, did my undergrad at University of Toronto. For any students or residents interested in how I got here: It took me a while to get around to posting this. I got my score report almost a month ago. I'm happy to say that I passed the ABIM! Scored 528.
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