Writing USMLE's during residency

[uwomedstudent]

Hey,

 

Has anyone written their USMLE's during residency? Is it suicide?? I am a canadian medical graduate doing internal medicine in canada. I want to apply to subspecialty programs in the US after finishing internal medicine in canada. I actually want to do reasonably well on the USMLE's to be a competitive applicant. So it's not just to pass which from what I understand is not that hard. I was thinking of studying my ass off during a chill rotation like Geriatrics (not many chill rotations in internal so far) then taking a week or two off to really study before I write it. Has anyone here pulled it off? Or do you know of people who did it?

 

Cheers

[Lactic Folly]

You wouldn't be the only one to write the USMLEs during residency.. Step 3 is typically written during the first year of residency anyway.

[cheech10]

Many states have reciprocity agreements with Canadian regulatory bodies. You may not need to write the USMLEs at all if you have finished residency in Canada. I would check with the schools you are interested in, as well as the state licensing bodies before signing up for the USMLEs.

[uwomedstudent]

@ Lactic Folly - Yes it's true but Step 1 is a lot harder than the other steps and much less relevant to residency than the other steps. If I could write the other steps and skip step 1 I totally would without thinking much about it.

 

@cheech10 - Thanks for your response. You are right in regards to physicians who have completed residency and are looking for a job in the US. The LMCC's are totally transferable. But I think for subspecialty fellowships in IM you pretty much need as you going through the ERAS (the US CARMS) process all over again. All the schools that I've looked at require the steps.

[case_sensitive]

If you're already in residency, step 2 shouldn't be that hard as you will have plenty of clinical experience under your belt. For step 1, you just need to revise the medical science stuff.

 

I wrote the usmle while in medical school and it is perfectly do-able. I did find however that it is harder than the canadian council exam (well not harder, but it involves a lot more detail).