Exam Center: Houston Exam Date: 21.August.2008 Result: Passed Weeks for Result: 6 My Experience: It was a great experience giving my CS at Houston! It was raining that day and my Cousin had tough time driving me to the exam center! I am glad that eveeryting went well for me there and I finally passed it! My Advice & My Errors: I had used First Aid for my preparation and I think it is more than sufficient for this exam. As I am currently doing my Pediatric Residency here in India,I hardly had enough time to prepare! But I feel that 15 to 20 days of dedicated preparation is more than sufficient. All you need to make sure is that you have the First Aid for CS and a "Standardized Patient" to Practice cases on him/her!!! What I did was that I trained my Room mate to act like a Standardized Patient(SP) for me! He had absolutely no Idea what this exam is all about but I trained him and made him realize what this exam is in 2-3 days! But the most important requirnment is that YOU SHOULD HAVE A PERFECT IDEA AS TO WHAT THIS EXAM IS ALL ABOUT AND HOW YOU HAVE TO CRACK IT! For getting an idea you first go through the First Aid for USMLE or any other website or a Blog like this or talk to a friend who has already given the exam recently. Once you get the Idea as to what preparation this exam needs you need to work on this day in and day out!! On the day of exam it is very important that you keep your cool always and realize that the cases you encounter are the ones which you have seen in your day to day life and most likely described in First Aid and the ones which you might have already practiced on your SP. Have the sense of timing in you mind. Use proper Communication Skills. Talk sensible English. Take a focussed History and do a focussed Physical exam. Do not forget to do relevant Counselling and make sure that you do all this in !% minutes. I had done many errors. I missed out counselling for smoking in one of the cases and failed to examine the gait in a patient with Hearing Difficulty. I ran out of time on couple of occasions during the last part of my Patient Encounter that is Explaining the Differential Diagnosis andwork up plans! Even though I committed so many mistakes I could pass it because thei exam is not the test of Perfection but its the Test of your Comprehensiveness! So Friends keep your cool work for it, be focussed and you will crack it! I wish you all the very best and I thank DIGITALDOC for giving me such a beautiful Opportunity to share my experience! Take care! My Stay / Cost / Travel to Center: I stayed with my Cousin at Houston Name : Sandeep

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