UNITED STATES MEDICAL LICENSING EXAMINATION (USMLE)



The United States Medical Licensing Program administers a series of examinations. Most states accept passing of these examinations as a means of obtaining licensure for the practice of medicine. The University of Massachusetts Medical School requires successful passage of Step 1of the US Medical Licensing Examination. Students are also required to record a score to the Medical School for Steps 2 (CK) Clinical Knowledge and Step 2 (CS) Skills of the US Medical Examination (USMLE). Therefore, a student is required to pass Step and report scores for all three exams to the institution for graduation.

Step Iand IIeach consist of a one-day multiple-choice examination. They are taken at the student’s discretion, subject to scheduling arrangements made directly with Sylvan Learning Systems, which administers the USMLEfor the National Board of Medical Examiners. Customarily, the USMLEStep Exam has been taken in June after the second year of medical school. It encompasses material from the following seven areas of the basic science curriculum: Anatomy, Biochemistry, Physiology, Pharmacology, Pathology, Microbiology, and Behavioral Sciences. Step is similar in format to Step I, and is usually taken during the fourth year of medical school. The subjects which are tested are the clinical sciences of Medicine: Surgery, Psychiatry, Pediatrics, Obstetrics and Gynecology, Preventive Medicine and Public Health. TheClinical Skills evaluation is an eight (8) hour exam in which students encounter 11-12 standardized patients. Each student is evaluated based on their interaction with the standardized patients, differential diagnosis and note taking. It is recommended that students sign up for this exam early in your fourth year as times/locations fill up quickly. Step III is taken toward the end of the first year of residency training.

Applications for and information pertaining to the Step I, Step IIand the Clinical Skills Examinations are available at the USMLEWeb site: (www.usmle.org/). Students receive a report of their scores directly from the National Board. Scores are also sent to the Associate Dean for Student Affairs and are kept in the Registrar’s Office as part of each student’s permanent academic record. A tabulated summary of the performance of the class for each examination, including average scores for each of the subject matters, is made available to faculty.

*Taken from the 2007-2008 UMass Medical School, School of Medicine Student Handbook 

USMLE link: http://www.usmle.org/