Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2017

Publication Title

Journal of Educational Evaluation for Health Professions

DOI

10.3352/jeehp.2017.14.25

Abstract

Purpose: United States (US) and Canadian citizens attending medical school abroad often desire to return to the US for residency, and therefore must pass US licensing exams. We describe a 2-day United States Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE) step 2 clinical skills (CS) preparation course for students in the Technion American Medical School program (Haifa, Israel) between 2012 and 2016. Methods: Students completed pre- and post-course questionnaires. The paired t-test was used to measure students’ perceptions of knowledge, preparation, confidence, and competence in CS pre- and post-course. To test for differences by gender or country of birth, analysis of variance was used. We compared USMLE step 2 CS pass rates between the 5 years prior to the course and the 5 years during which the course was offered. Results: Ninety students took the course between 2012 and 2016. Course evaluations began in 2013. Seventy-three students agreed to participate in the evaluation, and 64 completed the pre- and post-course surveys. Of the 64 students, 58% were US-born and 53% were male. Students reported statistically significant improvements in confidence and competence in all areas. No differences were found by gender or country of origin. The average pass rate for the 5 years prior to the course was 82%, and the average pass rate for the 5 years of the course was 89%. Conclusion: A CS course delivered at an international medical school may help to close the gap between the pass rates of US and international medical graduates on a high-stakes licensing exam. More experience is needed to determine if this model is replicable.

Publisher's Statement

Originally published in Journal of Educational Evaluation for Health Professions, 14 [Article 25]. The original material can be found here.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Share

COinS
 
 

To view the content in your browser, please download Adobe Reader or, alternately,
you may Download the file to your hard drive.

NOTE: The latest versions of Adobe Reader do not support viewing PDF files within Firefox on Mac OS and if you are using a modern (Intel) Mac, there is no official plugin for viewing PDF files within the browser window.