Complete physical vs focused Question

[Halcyon Days]

I had a question about the scoring in regards to the office setting. Say patient comes in 100% stable complaining of abdominal pain. Would doing a complete physical in this setting net you less points then if you did a focused physical?

I understand that in the acute setting with an unstable patient if you do a complete physical you would lose points but i was wondering if the same pertained to the stable office setting.

Or perhaps it's something else entirely. Like say if you do a complete you get a score but had you done a focused you get bonus points?

Can anyone comment on this?

[gellerf]

I never did a complete physical on any patient in the emergency room, just the relevant stuff. Then after stabilizing the patient and admitting him to the floor i would do the complete physical, but most of the time the program just thanked me for taking care of the patient and went on to the next case.

In the outpatient setting, I did a complete physical exam no matter the complaint (as long as no condition that compromised the ABC's was in the picture, which it never was).

I received my score the other day and did pretty well, so I guess I whatever I did worked. Hope this helps.

[Halcyon Days]

Thanks for the feedback Gellerf. I'm nervous as hell right now...test is next week and I just don't know if I've got this one.

I got this thing off a friend with about 70 pdf cases on it so I never ordered the World CCS. Now I'm wondering if I made a mistake, for all I know I suppose my pdf cases are the World cases and I wouldn't even know it. I ordered Steps-one-two-three(I hate the censoring on this site!!) but the thing is hardly interactive and if I could take it back I'd have spent that money on World.

[gellerf]

THe 70 PDF cases thing is good because I know a bunch of medicine residents that used and did well. I needed to use USMLE world CCS becuase I have never done a residency so I needed more information on why and how things are done. In any case, I dont think the CCS ever really makes or breaks your score as long as you dont completely bomb it. Make sure you practice with the software so that you are not a complete stranger when you get to it.

Its a long test with the first day being hard as hell for me with lots of guessing and the second day was nice and easy. I thought I bombed the first day, but ended up with a 97 on the test so do not worry if the test seems impossible the first day, just answer the questions as best you could. THe second day will be easy compared to the first. Good luck.

[Halcyon Days]

actually, i'm not a resident either. i'm taking this thing before i start to get it out of the way. the World CCS cases are looking good right about now :rolleyes:
97 huh? what happend? were you tired or something that day? haha. congrats dude, that is a freakin awesome score.

anyways, let me get back to the 123 cases.