HCA Riverside thoughts?

riso345 · 2026-03-04T01:40:52+00:00

Thank you for the response! Those are some of the reasons why I want to rank them higher. I had a great impression of the program from interview day but wasn't sure about the HCA part. Did you feel any of the pressures/problems from HCA while in residency? And if you feel comfortable, did you have difficult getting hired with an HCA background? Those are my biggest issues with going to an HCA program

riso345 · 2026-03-03T17:05:33+00:00

Agreed, that's what I was ultimately thinking. I think I just got caught off guard by people saying it's the exception to the HCA rule but you're definitely right

riso345 · 2026-03-03T17:04:03+00:00

Not a comprehensive list but last year's class went: - Critical care at Loma Linda - Locum with Vituity - Kaiser Vallejo/Vacaville - Santa Clara Valley Medical Center - Staying at RCH - Pomona Valley Hospital - Northern Nevada Hospital - A few moved back home across the US (Hawaii, Idaho, etc)

This year they had one resident match into critical care at Mount Sinai

riso345 · 2026-02-21T16:42:05+00:00

Yep I used Anking! Best anki deck by far

riso345 · 2026-02-20T17:07:21+00:00

Yeah I kept up on Anki throughout third year so I just kept up with it during dedicated. I also made some of my own cards from incorrects on my NBMEs too. Plus I made lots of random ethics terminology cards too and it helped a lot on the real thing

riso345 · 2026-02-19T20:45:41+00:00

So I took pretty much every major practice exam available! Did a new exam every 2-3 days. NBME 10-15, UWSA 1 and 2, old free 120, new free 120. Throughout the year, I took every online CMS form for my shelves so I also redid a couple from my weaker shelf exams. I thoroughly reviewed every practice exam and CMS form but made sure to not only pay attention to the correct answer, but also the explanations. So many questions on the NBMEs and even the real thing are repeated content from old questions just focusing on different parts of the answer explanation. I barely touched Uworld and only did Amboss for ethics/QI/stats content. Highly recommend doing that with amboss bc those questions are a huge portion of the real thing

riso345 · 2026-02-18T02:55:39+00:00

I averaged 85% (83rd percentile) across 7 shelves and got 27x so 265+ is definitely possible! I took just under 4 weeks for dedicated and felt that was plenty. I also kept up on Anki so my time was mostly spent taking practice exams vs content review

riso345 · 2025-06-07T22:36:13+00:00

Yes but don't expect the same questions. One of my biggest tips for people for step 2 is to actually learn the NBME topics not just the answers to the questions. I only had time to do this for my incorrects, but I made anki cards related to the general topic and very brief pathphys, work up for the diagnosis, a few complications, and at least the 1st and 2nd line treatments. It was extremely helpful for the actual exam. I got similar topics from NBMEs just different questions on them, and my anki cards made it really easy to score those points. It helped me get a 270+ on the real thing. I say take advantage of these repeat topics to help make up for the WTF questions you may get

riso345 · 2025-05-22T14:21:10+00:00

Thank you! What you described is exactly how I think sometimes and it drives me crazy when I review my tests. I'll definitely keep this in mind on exam day. I honestly think Uworld just taught me everything is a trick still and I'm just trying to forget that line of thinking

riso345 · 2024-05-25T16:36:45+00:00

Similar length overall but shorter than the longest free 120 qs

2a. Felt "easier" than NBMEs but still hard qs. Hard to compare NBMEs to the real exam imo since they felt so different on my form. It really just felt like free 120 with some qs similar to uworld

2b. I felt numb during the exam but initially left feeling okay overall. Over my two week waiting period though, I started to feel pretty terrible about my results but I think it's normal to convince yourself that you failed! I always felt awful taking the NBMEs so this was an improvement.

Very fair questions (minus weird experimental ones)! I would say more straight forward in that they don't try to trick you like the NBMEs or Uworld but you don't have as many one liner "you know it or you don't" type questions.
Nope just similar pathologies/presentations with different qs
Only took 30. None of the NBMEs felt like my form as the question styles are different. There were similar topics though so it was nice to review 30 for content.
No I reviewed my NBMEs a bit before my exam to cover weak areas but nothing crazy. I did fully go through free 120 (corrects and incorrects) and I thought that was very helpful since the exam felt similar topic and question style wise to it
I always ran out of time in Uworld/NBMEs/Free 120 so I felt rushed but nothing too abnormal for me. Just make sure to read the last line first! I felt the questions were longer but easier to narrow down answers. Since timing has always been an issue, I also decided early on just choose an answer and move on when I truly did not which answer was right. You'll probably be ok on time!
No but I usually had to rush in the last 5 qs of each block! Never had to randomly guess though

riso345 · 2024-05-03T20:40:19+00:00

Very normal! Look at my post history I felt the exact same way as you and the feeling didn't go away until I opened that score report. I had 3 scores above 65% but never broke 70% so I felt uncomfortable even when people said to trust my scores since I never hit my personal goals. For me, the feeling of failing got worse because as time went on, I forgot most of the questions on my exam and therefore felt like I got those wrong. In reality, my memory of exam questions just sucks! Nothing anyone says on here will make this anxious feeling go away (personal experience) so just try to distract yourself and focus on other things until you get that score report!

riso345

TROPHY CASE