USMLE- United States Medical Licensing Exams

The license is granted by the individual medical licensing authorities or state medical boards in other words. Every authority has its own rules and regulations and it involves passing an examination that demonstrates qualification for licensure. Results of the USMLE are reported to these authorities for use in granting the initial license to practice medicine. The USMLE provides all the medical licensing authorities or state medical boards with a common evaluation system for applicants for initial medical licensure.

Through the examination and the evaluation process, the USMLE assesses a physician's ability to apply knowledge, concepts, and principles, and to demonstrate fundamental patient-centered skills, that are important in health and disease and that constitute the basis of safe and effective patient care. The USMLE is actually comprised of three different exams that are referred to as steps, which examine the individual's knowledge of specific topics related to the field of medicine such as basic science, medical knowledge, medical skills, clinical science, and the application of all of these skills and areas of knowledge in the medical field. All three steps of the USMLE include a series of computerized multiple-choice questions, but the format of the exam and the information covered in each multiple-choice section is different for each step of the USMLE. The USMLE Step II also has a clinical skills portion that examines an individual's ability to work with real patients and the USMLE Step III has a computerized patient simulation portion in addition to the multiple-choice section of the exam. In order for an individual to receive a license to practice medicine, the individual must pass all three steps of the USMLE.

Since individual medical licensing authorities make decisions regarding use of USMLE results, physicians seeking licensure should contact the jurisdiction where they intend to apply for licensure to obtain complete information.

In June 2009, The Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates (ECFMG), the Federation of State Medical Boards (FSMB), and the National Board of Medical Examiners (NBME) are pleased have announced that all these three organizations have endorsed the USMLE Composite Committee's recommendations to revise the USMLE. These recommendations include sharpening the assessment focus on examinees' readiness for supervised and for unsupervised practice; adopting a general competencies schema for the overall design, development, and scoring of USMLE and emphasizing the importance of the scientific foundations of medicine in all components of the assessment process. The staff has also been charged with enhancing the assessment of clinical skills and developing measures of an examinee's ability to access and apply information to solving clinical problems.