Matched ? Advantages of Step 3 Before Residency

Irrespective of your need for a H1b visa, taking the step 3 prior to the start of residency might offer some good advantages to residents-to-be :

1. There is both, a real and a perceived lack of time during residency in busy specialties like internal medicine, general surgery, etc. and enough stress already - why add more ?

2. For non-medicine heavy specialties, where one gradually loses touch with clinical general medicine, (such as pathology, surgical specialties, etc,) taking the step 3 later during residency becomes even more onerous. It's probably better to finish it off while you still have clinical vibes left after your step 2 CK ;-)

3. Aiming for building a resume for fellowships ? Then that time for Step 3 prep during residency could rather be used for some research / publications. ... the time for applying for fellowships will come around faster than you would like it to ..;-)

4. Getting Step 3 opens up Moonlighting possibilities faster in some programs since some states / programs need to have step 3 done and have a state license before one can moonlight, and delaying that will only delay yourself making extra bucks in such programs ;-)


Well..life is imperfect and there are not many things that have ONLY advantages..hehe...a disadvantage of taking the step 3 prior to residency would be that you would lose the opportunity to be have your step 3 fees covered by the residency prgrams as part of the benefits ;-), but then again, that's not something offered by all programs.


There are some that I could think of, comments / corrections / questions r welcome.


Also read:

- Step 3 and H1b visa: Wuts the Connection ?
- Perks and Benefits offered during Residency