The United States Medical Licensing Examination or USMLE is a multi-part professional exam sponsored by the Federation of State Medical Boards (FSMB) and the National Board of Medical Examiners (NBME). Medical doctors are required to pass before being permitted to practice medicine in the United States of America. It consists of three steps; all three must be passed before an MD medical school graduate is eligible to apply for a license to practice medicine in the United States. U.S. osteopathic medical school graduates are permitted to take the USMLE for medical licensure, but they may also get medical licensure in most states by taking the Comprehensive Osteopathic Medical Licensing Examination (COMLEX) instead. Students who have graduated from non-US medical schools 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: 95% for U.S. MD medical school graduates, 82% for U.S. osteopathic medical school graduates, and 70% for foreign medical school graduates
The USMLE is divided into three parts.
Step 1, Step 2 and Step 3
In step 3 (Computer-based case simulations are used
The CCS (Computer-based case simulations)
Currently only forming 25% of the USMLE step 3 content, this is planned to progressively increase to 75% of the content.
Right now, there are 4 hours of testing allocated for this.
CCS allows you to provide care for a simulated patient. You must balance the clinical information available with evidence of the acuity of the clinical problem in deciding what treatment to begin and when, monitoring the patient's response appropriately throughout.
In CCS, you may request information from the patient's history and physical examination, order lab studies, procedures and consultants, and start medications and other therapies. When there is nothing further you wish to do, you decide when to re-evaluate the patient by clicking on the clock to advance time. With the passage of time, the patient's condition changes based upon the underlying problem and your interventions. You cannot go back in time, but you can change orders to reflect an updated patient management plan. You can review vital signs, progress notes, nurses' notes, test results and reports from your orders. You may see and move the patient among the office, home, emergency department, intensive care and ward settings.
After you complete the cases for a group of patients, your management strategy will be compared with those of experts. Actions closer to the ideal will produce a higher score.
