USMLE Review: Update
June 22, 2009
A summary of the findings and recommendations of the Committee to Evaluate the USMLE Program is available here:
The Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates (ECFMG), the Federation of State Medical Boards (FSMB), and the National Board of Medical Examiners (NBME) are pleased to announce that all three organizations have endorsed the USMLE Composite Committee’s recommendations to revise the USMLE. These recommendations include: 1) sharpening the assessment focus on examinees’ readiness for supervised and for unsupervised practice; 2) adopting a general competencies schema for the overall design, development, and scoring of USMLE; and 3) emphasizing the importance of the scientific foundations of medicine in all components of the assessment process. The staff has also been charged with enhancing the assessment of clinical skills and developing measures of an examinee’s ability to access and apply information to solving clinical problems.
This endorsement marks the start of a multi-year process. During 2009, staff will:
- Convene a group of past and present Step Committee members to advise staff throughout the revision process;
- Review the balance of content in the Step 1 examination, with a goal of enhancing clinical relevance;
- Begin developmental efforts to increase representation of foundational science material in Steps 2CK and 3,
- Direct test committee members to develop items that more closely reflect the residency practice of recent medical school graduates; and
- Elaborate a timeline of developmental activities and implementation steps that may include changes to the Step 2 CS examination, new types of assessment activities, and other innovations needed to broadly measure the competencies of physicians who seek licensure to practice medicine within the United States.
We anticipate periodic updates that describe ongoing activities and planned changes, and will post interim progress reports to the USMLE website.