The United States Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE) is a multi-part professional exam sponsored by the Federation of State Medical Boards (FSMB) and the National Board of Medical Examiners (NBME). Physicians with an M.D. degree are required to pass this examination before being permitted to practice medicine in the United States of America; see below for requirements of physicians with a D.O. degree.
The USMLE assesses a physician's ability to apply knowledge, concepts, and principles, and to determine fundamental patient-centered skills that are important in health and disease and that constitute the basis of safe and effective patient care. Examination committees composed of medical educators and clinicians from across the United States and its territories prepare the examination materials each year.
Students and graduates of U.S. or Canadian medical school programs accredited by either the Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME) or Committee on Accreditation of Canadian Medical Schools, leading to the Doctor of Medicine (M.D.) degree, or by the American Osteopathic Association (AOA), leading to the Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine (D.O.) degree, register for Step 1 and Step 2 of the USMLE with the NBME. Students and graduates of medical schools outside the United States or Canada register for Step 1 and Step 2 with the Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates (ECFMG). Graduates of medical schools in and outside the United States and Canada register for Step 3 with the FSMB or with a medical licensing authority in the United States. Each of the three steps of the USMLE examination complements the other; no step stands alone in the assessment of readiness for medical licensure. The USMLE program recommends that for Step 3 eligibility, licensure authorities require the completion, or near completion, of at least one postgraduate training year in a program of graduate medical education accredited by the Accreditation Council on Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) or the American Osteopathic Association (AOA).
All three steps of the USMLE exam must be passed before a physician with an M.D. degree is eligible to apply for an unrestricted license to practice medicine in the United States. U.S. osteopathic medical school graduates are permitted to take the USMLE for medical licensure, which they can also obtain by passing the multi-part Comprehensive Osteopathic Medical Licensing Examination (COMLEX) professional exam. Students who have graduated from medical schools outside the US and Canada must pass all three steps of the USMLE to be licensed to practice in the US, regardless of the title of their degree. Overall pass rates for first time USMLE Step 1 test takers are: 94% for U.S. M.D. medical school graduates, 89% for U.S. D.O. osteopathic medical school graduates, and 73% for international medical school graduates. First-time USMLE Step 2 CK test taker pass rates are: 97% for U.S. M.D. medical school graduates and 93% for U.S. D.O. medical school graduates. First-time USMLE Step 2 CS test taker pass rates are: 98% for U.S. M.D. medical school graduates and 88% for U.S. D.O. medical school graduates. Overall pass rates for first time USMLE Step 3 test takers are: 97% for U.S. M.D. medical school graduates, 94% for U.S. D.O. medical school graduates, and 78% for international medical school graduates. (In these statistics, "U.S. M.D. medical school graduates" includes graduates of Canadian M.D. programs.)
Further information: Comparison of MD and DO in the United StatesRead more about United States Medical Licensing Examination: Step 1, Step 2, Step 3, Exam Format, Performance, Similar Exams
Famous quotes containing the words united states, united, states, medical and/or examination:
“As a Tax-Paying Citizen of the United States I am entitled to a voice in Governmental affairs.... Having paid this unlawful Tax under written Protest for forty years, I am entitled to receive from the Treasury of “Uncle Sam” the full amount of both Principal and Interest.”
—Susan Pecker Fowler (1823–1911)
“The United States Constitution has proved itself the most marvelously elastic compilation of rules of government ever written.”
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)
“A little group of wilful men reflecting no opinion but their own have rendered the great Government of the United States helpless and contemptible.”
—Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)
“One fellow I was dating in medical school ... was a veterinarian and he wanted to get married. I said, but you’re going to be moving to Minneapolis, and he said, oh, you can quit and I’ll take care of you. I said, “Go.””
—Sylvia Beckman (b. c. 1931)
“Maybe it’s understandable what a history of failures America’s foreign policy has been. We are, after all, a country full of people who came to America to get away from foreigners. Any prolonged examination of the U.S. government reveals foreign policy to be America’s miniature schnauzer—a noisy but small and useless part of the national household.”
—P.J. (Patrick Jake)