CS Disaster. Please help!

[ragged_red]

So let me preface this by saying that I did pretty well on steps 1 and 2, and I've done just fine on all of my clinical rotations. I'm not even a foreign medical student (I think you can see where this is heading). So you can imagine my surprise when I got my cs score back the other day and didn't pass.

I'm completely lost right now. My confidence is shot because I don't even know where I went wrong. I scored horribly on everything except english, which after 26 years of practice, I'd hope I would have a handle on. I thought everything went well and that I at least covered all the basic stuff for each encounter. I submitted a score recheck but I'm not counting on it being my saving grace or anything. I've already registered to take it again but at this point I feel like I'm just totally screwed.

First of all, I don't even know what I would do differently the second time around quite frankly. Just as importantly though, I feel like I have absolutely no chance of getting an ortho residency now. The only thing I have working in my favor I guess is that I chose not to automatically have my USMLE transcript released so I suppose that none of the schools I applied to will see this when considering me for an interview.

I feel like this is something that will certainly come up during interviews if I still manage to get some and I just don't know how to handle it. I know I can pass this stupid thing and I feel like I really did the first time, but I guess that's besides the point for now.

If anyone has any advice, I'd really appreciate it. I'm at a total loss here. The last few days really feel like a terrible dream...

[OrthoChiDO]

Did you do a practice CS with your teachers/standarized patients in medical school in preparation for CS?
Is your school making you do a review before doing the CS portion again?

At my school, those who fail the CS part, when they come back to school to review what went wrong, 99.99% of them had trouble during the history part and asking the right questions. We are taught from Day 1 of H&P class a mnemonic that covers every single big question that needs to be asked. For our standardized patient practice encoutners (and all other practice) we are required to write the mneumonic down on the paper before going in; thus at the end, you can look quickly and see what you forgot to ask.

Not sure, if that is what your problem was, but if you would like the mneumonic or whatnot just shoot me a PM.

[BONECRUSHA]

Whats the mnemonic?