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The Change of USMLE Step 1 to Pass/Fail: Perspectives of the Surgery Program Director

OBJECTIVE: This study sought to evaluate the perspectives of surgical program directors regarding the change of USMLE Step 1 to pass/fail grading. DESIGN: Validated electronic survey. SETTING: Vanderbilt University Medical Center Department of Plastic Surgery. PARTICIPANTS: Program directors of all...

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Autores principales: Pontell, Matthew E., Makhoul, Alan T., Ganesh Kumar, Nishant, Drolet, Brian C.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Elsevier 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7347473/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32654997
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jsurg.2020.06.034
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author Pontell, Matthew E.
Makhoul, Alan T.
Ganesh Kumar, Nishant
Drolet, Brian C.
author_facet Pontell, Matthew E.
Makhoul, Alan T.
Ganesh Kumar, Nishant
Drolet, Brian C.
author_sort Pontell, Matthew E.
collection PubMed
description OBJECTIVE: This study sought to evaluate the perspectives of surgical program directors regarding the change of USMLE Step 1 to pass/fail grading. DESIGN: Validated electronic survey. SETTING: Vanderbilt University Medical Center Department of Plastic Surgery. PARTICIPANTS: Program directors of all ACMGE-accredited General Surgery, Integrated Vascular Surgery, Integrated Thoracic Surgery, and Integrated Plastic Surgery residency programs. RESULTS: The overall response rate was 55.5%. Most PDs (78.1%) disagreed with the scoring change. Only 19.6% believe this change will improve medical student well-being. For 63.5% of PDs, medical school pedigree will become more important, and 52.7% believe it will place international medical graduates at a disadvantage. Only 6.2% believe Step 2 CK should also be pass/fail, while 88.7% will increase the weight of Step 2 CK and 88.4% will now require Step 2 CK score submission with the electronic residency application service. CONCLUSIONS: While well-intentioned, changing USMLE Step 1 to pass/fail may have unintended consequences and may disadvantage certain groups of applicants. The emphasis on Step 1, and resulting test-taking apprehension, will likely shift to Step 2 CK. Proponents of equitable evaluation should direct their efforts toward increasing, not decreasing, the number of objective measures available for student assessment.
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spelling pubmed-73474732020-07-10 The Change of USMLE Step 1 to Pass/Fail: Perspectives of the Surgery Program Director Pontell, Matthew E. Makhoul, Alan T. Ganesh Kumar, Nishant Drolet, Brian C. J Surg Educ Original Reports OBJECTIVE: This study sought to evaluate the perspectives of surgical program directors regarding the change of USMLE Step 1 to pass/fail grading. DESIGN: Validated electronic survey. SETTING: Vanderbilt University Medical Center Department of Plastic Surgery. PARTICIPANTS: Program directors of all ACMGE-accredited General Surgery, Integrated Vascular Surgery, Integrated Thoracic Surgery, and Integrated Plastic Surgery residency programs. RESULTS: The overall response rate was 55.5%. Most PDs (78.1%) disagreed with the scoring change. Only 19.6% believe this change will improve medical student well-being. For 63.5% of PDs, medical school pedigree will become more important, and 52.7% believe it will place international medical graduates at a disadvantage. Only 6.2% believe Step 2 CK should also be pass/fail, while 88.7% will increase the weight of Step 2 CK and 88.4% will now require Step 2 CK score submission with the electronic residency application service. CONCLUSIONS: While well-intentioned, changing USMLE Step 1 to pass/fail may have unintended consequences and may disadvantage certain groups of applicants. The emphasis on Step 1, and resulting test-taking apprehension, will likely shift to Step 2 CK. Proponents of equitable evaluation should direct their efforts toward increasing, not decreasing, the number of objective measures available for student assessment. Elsevier 2021 2020-07-10 /pmc/articles/PMC7347473/ /pubmed/32654997 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jsurg.2020.06.034 Text en Since January 2020 Elsevier has created a COVID-19 resource centre with free information in English and Mandarin on the novel coronavirus COVID-19. The COVID-19 resource centre is hosted on Elsevier Connect, the company's public news and information website. Elsevier hereby grants permission to make all its COVID-19-related research that is available on the COVID-19 resource centre - including this research content - immediately available in PubMed Central and other publicly funded repositories, such as the WHO COVID database with rights for unrestricted research re-use and analyses in any form or by any means with acknowledgement of the original source. These permissions are granted for free by Elsevier for as long as the COVID-19 resource centre remains active.
spellingShingle Original Reports
Pontell, Matthew E.
Makhoul, Alan T.
Ganesh Kumar, Nishant
Drolet, Brian C.
The Change of USMLE Step 1 to Pass/Fail: Perspectives of the Surgery Program Director
title The Change of USMLE Step 1 to Pass/Fail: Perspectives of the Surgery Program Director
title_full The Change of USMLE Step 1 to Pass/Fail: Perspectives of the Surgery Program Director
title_fullStr The Change of USMLE Step 1 to Pass/Fail: Perspectives of the Surgery Program Director
title_full_unstemmed The Change of USMLE Step 1 to Pass/Fail: Perspectives of the Surgery Program Director
title_short The Change of USMLE Step 1 to Pass/Fail: Perspectives of the Surgery Program Director
title_sort change of usmle step 1 to pass/fail: perspectives of the surgery program director
topic Original Reports
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7347473/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32654997
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jsurg.2020.06.034
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