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Medical Ethics and the Step I

3/29/2010

2 Comments

 
Part of any good medical student's preparation for boards includes a bank of practice questions that not only helps you simulate the real deal, but tutors you along the way.  QBanks give you a team of experts who dedicate their lives to mimicking the logic, knowledge base, and testing style of the Step tests.  For just $135 dollars, I have USMLEworld on my side, quizzing me and telling me why I'm wrong every step of the way.

But the purchase of a QBank gives you more than computerized flashcards.  They keep track of everything for you.  Though I might wince at the fact that I get less than 50% of the questions on pharmacology right, it's still comforting to know that if I get tired of studying, I can procrastinate by analyzing my weak areas.  I can see how I'm doing by subject or question type.  They even give me a percentile based on all the other USMLEworld QBankers that are out there.  This also means that for every explanation, I get a percentage of other users that answered this question right.  If I get a question wrong, I can take comfort in the fact that 78% of other students also got it wrong.  In general these percentages vary from the hardest questions, ~20% answered correctly, to the highest I've seen: 77% got it right.

Recently as doctors come under more and more scrutiny with respect to our humanity - you know, those fuzzy things like bedside manner, healthcare inequalities, and ethics - these topics have also worked their way into the Step.

I was shocked to find that as I waded through a problem set on cardiology, a question popped up about my ethics.  The scenario: you recently treated and saved the life of one of your patients who had suffered a myocardial infarction.  In order to show his gratitude, he shows up at this next appointment with an expensive antique watch to thank you.  What do you do?  I was excited.  STEP I WAS TURNING INTO A CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE!

However, unlike past chose your own adventure books, times when no one is looking and you can indulge the guiltiest pleasures, USMLEworld was watching.  I dutifully chose the option to "thank the patient for the gift, but politely decline."  I suppose I should credit my parents as, at least according to the Step I, I was a morally upstanding citizen.

When I went to review my questions, like the rest of its friends, the ethics question also told me how many of my colleagues had chosen the right answer: 58%.
2 Comments
Buck
3/29/2010 11:34:53 am

i remember that shit - wasn't the actual right answer to take the goddamn watch? it's okay because antique watches are priced in sentimental dollars only. just like watches that say "lipitor."

Reply
Jin
5/4/2010 07:14:00 am

OMG. i just missed that question. i said that i would tell the pt it would be unethical of me to accept the gift, and not accept it. but apparently that was too harsh of an answer??

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