I usually don’t like sharing my exam results but I thought my MCCQE Part I results were really interesting and worth sharing. To understand how the Medical Council of Canada scores Part I, you should take a look at their Scoring FAQ.
Overall, I am very happy with my results. I scored comfortably above the median. I’ve written on this blog before about being below average and why it’s ok to be average in medical school. You just have to remember that statistically half of all graduating doctors will be below average.
What’s really interesting about the MCCQE Part I results is the Supplemental Feedback Letter you get that gives you a breakdown of each individual section. Below are the breakdown of my test results. Note according to their help file the borderline area is where the passing mark is set at.
Now I didn’t post my results to brag. I clearly still have lots of areas to learn and improve in. I just found the results reaffirmed me choosing Internal Medicine for residency. During the test I had a suspicious I was doing well in the Internal Med section because I got some really hard questions on zebra diseases.
I was really pleased to have scored well in Clinical Decision Making (CDM). I also really enjoyed Psychiatry so I wasn’t surprised about doing well in that area either.To score in the top quintile for three sections was much better than I expected.
I didn’t do too hot in Surgery but I’m ok with that. I will attribute it to a question I got early on causes of day 1 post-op fever. If you ask any old-school surgeon or check a typical textbook, the answer they will undoubtedly be atelectasis. I’m pretty sure that’s what the “correct” answer was on the MCCQE too. However, if you look at the literature for atelectasis and post-op fever, there is actually no evidence to support it. In fact, there’s a negative correlation. As the incidence of atelectasis increases the incidence of fevers declined.
So, I refused to choose atelectasis as the “correct” answer even though it was probably the “right” choice. There’s no reason to continue to circulate unsupported anecdotal myths in medicine. (ie contraindications ofepinephrine in local anesthetics for extremities, CO2 decreasing respiratory drive in COPD)
(To see how I studied for the MCCQE Part I, check out my post on My LMCC Study Plan)
You just have to remember that statistically half of all graduating doctors will be below average.
Actually half of all graduating doctors will be below the median level, but possibly not the average. Oh stats…
As for the epinephrine issue, I once raised that with a family med preceptor who learned the “eyes, fingers, toes, ears” rule, but he wasn’t especially convinced. I typically didn’t use lidocaine with epi when doing wound repairs (essentially unsupervised) in emerg though.
Thanks for the correction on the mean/median, I guess I was using “average” in the colloquial sense, where average means middle of the pack. I knew there was some outdated knowledge “fingers, toes, nose, hose” when I saw both ENT and Plastics use lidocaine with epi in the nose and fingers. Plus if you use epinephrine, you can give more anesthetic which I’m sure the patient would much rather prefer.
What was your numerical score?
Did you do any practice exams on the mcc site? If so, how did they compare??
Awesome for posting your results!!
I can’t remember the score but it was above the median.
I did the free practice exam they had, I don’t think it really helped.
The LMCC is just like any other test you’ve taken in medical school or university. You just have to remember the most important facts for each section and you’ll be fine. The clinical decision part I found a bit tricky, but apparently I did very well on it.
Everyone who studies and puts an effort into it passes it. Don’t sweat it too much.
Hey medaholic -
Thanks for all your thoughts!
Just curious which resources for practice questions you’ve heard are useful. I’m using the questions from Toronto Notes and USMLEworld but not sure if those will be reflective of the exam.
Thanks!
I mainly used Toronto Notes and class review notes. A classmate let me do some Canada QBank questions and I tried some USMLEworld, but didn’t find them particularly too helpful. A lot of the questions were worded poorly. Honestly, the questions felt like what we had already done for the last four years in med school. It helped that our school had a comprehensive exam too just before the LMCC MCCQE.
I find the scoring on the exam very interesting. On the first graph my performance on the CDM portion was about at the same place as your surgery. However on figure 2 I was at the fourth quintile. So our year must have done terrific on cdm while the two years before us must have done worst as I was borderline my year but I was in top 20% when last three years was taken into account.
hey, do you have to undergo clerkships for mccqe just like you have to do for USMLE?
I’m from India.. and i just wanted to know the procedure of MCCQE for international students.
How long did it take to get your result back after taking the exam? Thanks!
I am looking for study partner for QE II. If anybody interested, let me know please. thanks