USMLE Step 2 CS Prep – 3 Tips For An Outstanding CIS

As you probably know, the USMLE Step 2 CS exam is getting tougher and tougher. Because of this, it is extremely important that your Step 2 CS Prep is approached correctly.

In today’s post, we’re going to cover three important tips that will ensure that as you begin your USMLE Step 2 CS preparation, you are approaching the CIS component the right way.

Since the CIS is often a spot of failure for students, these tips will give you some help to ensure that you’re progressing in the right direction.

Tip #1 – Understand & Implement Empathy The Right Way

Empathy is a necessary component of a great CIS score, so it is imperative that you’re doing it right. In order to properly implement empathy, you first need to understand what it means.

It simply means having the ability to understand and share another person’s feelings. This means that when someone tells you something or demonstrates pain, you have the ability to feel it as well. When you have this skill, you can better connect with your patient, which will improve your CIS score.

Not only is it important that you can feel empathy, it is important that you can demonstrate it as well.

This means that when the SP tells you something that requires your empathy, that you can show them that you understand and feel their pain.

We tell all of the students who come to our Live Step 2 CS Preparation Program that an ideal place to start demonstrating empathy is right away when the patient tells you what brought them into the office to see you. At that point, demonstrate that you understand their problem/pain and let them know that you’ll do your best to help them out.

Tip #2 – Be Sure To Make Your SP (Patient) Feel Heard

Many times, students going through their Step 2 CS preparation aren’t letting the SP speak openly and free enough, which can cause the SP to feel as though you’re not truly hearing them.

What you want to do is ask open-ended questions and repeat what they tell you so that they can see that you truly do understand what they’re saying.

If you make this small adjustment in your approach, not only will it demonstrate to the SP that you’re hearing them loud-and-clear, but it will show them that you truly do care about their well-being.

Tip #3 – Do All The Small Things Right

As a whole, the Step 2 CS exam is made up of many small things that you need to do right in order to collect all of your points.

While there are dozens upon dozens of small things that you need to do throughout the encounter, a couple of examples of ‘small things’ that really add-up throughout the encounter might include:

• Making eye contact
• Demonstrating empathy
• Telling the SP what you’re doing throughout the PE
• Performing a ‘warn transfer’ between questioning

If you know exactly what you have to do in order to do those things correctly, your points really start to add-up. If on the other hand you aren’t doing those small things correctly, you could actually lose a few points here and there, and this could add-up to many lost points by the end of the encounter.

If you take these three small pieces of advice and implement them into your Step 2 CS preparation, you’ll benefit tremendously.

If you’re not quite sure how to do all of these things correctly or you want to make sure that everything you’re doing is correct, check out our Step 2 CS Preparation Program, where we’ll help ensure