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    Opinion: Make the Step 1 test for medical students pass/fail

    Step 1 "cutoff scores" are being used to help medical residency programs choose candidates. That's a misuse of the test, which is a poor predictor of future clinical performance and…
    by C. Nicholas Cuneo Mar 08, 2019 5 minutes

    “Are you OK?” a medical school classmate asked when I snuck back into the lecture hall. I had just learned that I bombed arguably the most important test of my life. I was not OK. I was employing every technique I could muster so I wouldn’t break down in public.

    I had just checked my score on the United States Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE) Step 1 test. The first of three “Step” exams that physicians-in-training must pass to become licensed to practice independently, the computer-based test focuses on the basic sciences. It’s an eight-hour grind done in a single sitting.

    This test, once completed in paper and pencil by students en masse and viewed mostly as a tedious hurdle towards licensure, has since become an obsessive focus among medical students due to its elevation in the residency application process, fueling anxieties, ambitions, and evaluations of self-worth.

    I will never forget

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