USMLET Step 2 CS Examination

An Overview 

Step 2 CS (Clinical Skills) of the USMLET is offered to medical students and graduates prior to their entering into the residency programs. This is one of the two components of Step 2 of USMLE examinations. The examination is designed to judge your applied clinical medical knowledge. The exam structure is intended to judge the examinee's ability to gather information from patients, perform physical examinations, and communicate their findings to patients and colleagues. To do so, standardized patients (SP) are used. A standardized patient (SP) is a layperson specially trained to portray a medical condition and is trained to respond appropriately to your examination. SP is trained to keep a checklist of various components of history taking and physical examination. SP focuses on your clinical and professional aspect. 

The examination is offered only in the US at the following centers:

Atlanta
Chicago
Houston
Los Angeles
Philadelohia

 The examination is administered over One Day.

Total time: Appx. 8 hours. (Two breaks are provided, First break : 30 mins, during which light meal is provided, Second break: 15 mins.)

Each candidate will have a total of eleven OR twelve patient encounters. This may include a small number of non-scored patient encounters. There is no way to tell about non-scored patient encounters. As an examinee, you should treat all the SPs as test encounters. This being a standardized examination, haing eleven ort twelve SPs WILL NOT effect your score.

Patient encounters:
The testing area consists of a series of examination rooms.
SP  à  SP  à  SP  à  SP  à  SP  à   SP  à  SP à  SP  à  SP  à   SP à  SP  à   SP
Each such room will be equipped with standard examination tables, commonly used diagnostic instruments (blood pressure cuffs, otoscopes, and ophthalmoscopes), non-latex gloves, sinks, and paper towels. Outside each examination room is a cubicle equipped with a computer, where you can write the patient note

You will be asked to walk in a sequence and your interaction will be timed. At the beginning of each encounter, you will be provided with some basic information about the patient on the doorway.

Before each patient encounter, you will have an opportunity to review information posted on the examination room door (examinee instructions). The examinee instruction sheet gives you specific instructions and indicates the following:

Patient's name, age, gender, and reason for visiting the doctor.

Patient's vital signs, including heart rate, blood pressure, temperature (centigrade and Fahrenheit), and respiratory rate. You can accept the vital signs as accurate, and do not need to repeat them unless you believe the case specifically requires it. However, if you do repeat the vital signs, you should consider the vital signs as originally listed when developing your differential diagnosis and work-up plan.

You will be allowed a total of 25 minutes in each encounter.

15 minutes for patient encounter (The time from which you are asked to begin the encounter till you are asked to leave the patient's room. You will be alarmed twice in each such encounter. Once when you have five minutes remaining and next when you will be asked to leave the room.

Patient's Note: You will have ten minutes to write or type a Patient Note. You begin to write Patient Note after you have come out of the patient's room. If you come out of the patient's room prior to completing all fifteen minutes assigned for patient encounter, you may use this time to write the Patient Note.

You cannot however use any extra time for working on another patient.

A candidate's performance is reported as either Pass or Fail. Examinee is not assigned any score for his/her performance.

For more details about this examination, please refer to www.usmle.org and www.ecfmg.org . There have been significant recent changes in the examination and it is strongly advised that your visit the above official websites.

At this time, TheUsmle.com does not have a preparatory course available for Step 2CS. The team is working at it and this will be available in near future. We stand committed to working with you, for you to excel.