> Is this common among physicians as a whole? Some of it is, some of it isn't. The worst doctor you know (okay, maybe not the worst, but close) is doing at le

> Is this common among physicians as a whole? Some of it is, some of it isn't. The worst doctor you know (okay, maybe not the worst, but close) is doing at least a couple of major journals and his CME. Really, you'd be surprised, but sitting on the other side of the exam table, believe me - it's the exception that doesn't try to stay fresh. That's really not what distinguishes bad from good from great doctors - it's finding a way to integrate and retain all that knowledge so you can apply it in an unexpected clinical scenario, rather than as watercooler talk or on an exam. I don't re-sit step exams 1/2/3, but I do a lot of ongoing question banks to refresh my boards, and I do go back to refreshing material from step 1/2/3 all the time (which is what I meant about repeating licensing exams- I see now that phrasing was unclear.) You're right that it's largely a hurdle and a stress, but that's because as a med student you're drinking from a firehose and your career depends on it. Studying it at my leisure, I can dive into things as deep or as superficially as is interesting at the time, and the broader my knowledge gets the more insights I ultimately glean from going back to those fundamentals. Memorizing biochem pathways when studying for boards is hell; refreshing biochem at your leisure just to better understand and retain is... well, if not pleasant, it's certainly not hell. CME is required to keep your license, but that's not a problem that I have - there are multiple sources of materials that grant CME credits that I already do "for fun", so I've got an over-abundance of credits. I hunt-and-seek interesting CME courses to stay abreast of interesting things. I went into medicine for love of medicine, and the idea of getting so narrow into my niche that I lose sight of all of those other exciting things would be a tragedy to me. As much as I appreciate the praise, honestly, you'd be surprised by how much even your least-impressive physician puts into staying up to date. There's just so much to know that the moment you stop your knowledge base evaporates.