meridian.allenpress.com
The problem with these statistics is that they aren't "fixed" for the score minus OMM portion. Personally, I did atrocious on the OMM and according to this I should have failed the step, yet I a passed step 1 in that 490 range, so COMLEX actually pulled me down 50 points. This also makes you wonder how much of this passing range discrepancy is because students are wasting time on OMM. If anything, this conversion should tell osteopathic schools to cut OMM stuff to the bare minimum and focus most teaching on USMLE
First, you need to get rid of the True Believers at NBOME, which will be as easy as getting a 100% vaccination rate against covid in the United States.COMLEX-USA and USMLE for Osteopathic Medical Students: Should We Duplicate, Divide, or Unify?
In 2020, approximately 60% of osteopathic medical students took at least one portion of the United States Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE).1 At first, this may seem a curious statistic. After all, the Comprehensive Osteopathic Medical Licensing Examination (COMLEX-USA) is the only...
Thoughts ?
Knowing some of my classmates, I’m not so convinced. I really think DO schools would have to decrease class sizes or somehow pull more academically accomplished applicants out of thin air.
There are MD students who fail Step I. So no, not all DO students will pass Step I either.
I think there’d just be higher attrition the first couple years while schools adjust. The people who can’t pass today aren’t incapable of doing so. They’re just at best disorganized and at worst lazy. Doesn’t help that when a DO student gets owned by a couple blocks of uworld in January of OMS-II the school tells them to just focus on comlex.
Agree. Barely survived the omm comats.
Im curious because my DO school is requiring USMLE step 1 as a requirement for graduation starting this year. Does any other school do this? What is the pass rate? I haven't seen a pass rate that doesn't pre select for the smarter students.
I think RVU requires students to take Step
Yeah I go to RVU, this is the first year its required.
Oh I thought it was a thing for a while, my bad. I don’t know if any other DO schools that require it
I recall talks of lecom requiring it. Don’t know if they ever followed through.
I think they've always encouraged it. But I don't think it was ever required to graduate. And I think having literally everyone take it makes a difference. Im sure past classes have done well enough that they feel comfortable implementing this policy. But I am also a little curious (and a little skeptical) if this has something to do with increasing the class size, and finding rotation sites for everyone. Potentially trying to weed out the bottom 5%?
IMGs need to pass USMLE to match in US. There is zero reason to exempt DO students from USMLE. I’m certain most will pass if USMLE is the main exam to study
Yeah just checked the handbook
I disagree with your assessment that everyone could pass step, like Goro said, there are MD candidates who fail every year.
I didn’t mean first attempt. MD schools don’t do that either. That’s unreasonable.
Is there that much of an overlap between USMLE and non-OMM COMLEX? Because i’m seeing posts of high USMLE/low COMLEX. Anecdotal and people could be lying yes but still
I know for a fact that RVU used to have this policy, got rid of it, and then have re-instituted it
Yes. And the thing is, the stuff that isn’t on USMLE could still show up on comlex. However, if it’s not in BUFAPS, no one will know it anyway so that question gets tossed.
Do you know why they got rid of it? Were people failing?
Yes its similar, but I'm one of those higher USMLE lower COMLEX people and if I had done more studying for complex specifically I probably would have done better on it. I did zero studying for comlex except for a couple days of OMM review. The questions on comlex are terribly written and just using UW does not prepare you for how bad some of the questions are on there. I know of several other people in my class and the class above me who did better on Step vs comlex and we all focused almost solely studying for step
Not sure. The average score for their last year of requiring it was like a 223 I think.
I remember them telling us this during my interview, so it was planned years before the bad match, and before p/f decision. And its only STEP 1
I think weird crap just happens with comlex. I thought comlex was harder bc the questions were so vague and idiotic. I thought coming out of both sets of exams that I was going to do better on the steps because I at least understood what the questions were asking for both steps and felt confident. I actually cried coming out of level 1 bc I was sure I failed... shocked me to death when I did better on level 1 than step 1, and then repeated that pattern for level 2/step 2.
My experience as well. Some people got upset when I posted that a year or two ago. You don't have to know literally any OMM to pass any comlex exams based on the idea that even guessing gets some questions correct because the rest is just regular stuff you should know.
Comlex score is meaningless for almost all students aside from former AOA surgical subs (and that's dwindling). I used it to get a half day on exam day and go chill before going back to real job. When you know it doesn't matter, you are tired from USMLE a couple days prior, and you don't study OMM at all you will of course do worse than your true potential....
... or, we decide that the current graduates of DO schools getting 400-450 on the COMLEX are perfectly fine doctors, and we adjust the passing level on the USMLE downwards. Although that's never going to happen.
This is certainly an issue. You could be the greatest student ever but still fail the OMM exam. Although, if it was a separate exam, I assume as the greatest student ever you'd actually study for it and pass it. If this were to come to be, I'd favor the schools simply certifying students as competent in OMM and not have a national exam.
This is a theory. It certainly might be true. Or it might not. Depends on how different the content and style of the exams are, and how much you can actually practice for the latter.
Former AOA surgical subs do not care about COMLEX. Many have MD faculty and/or chairs.
This is a good point, we already take the OPP COMAT. They could just use that as the "OMM supplement"
This is confusing because I know people who say that USMLE is tougher. I'm confused... Either way, I'm a D.O. so as of now, I have no way around the comlex.
Straightforward/easy = bad when you're talking about standardization. The more straightforward a test is, the tighter the scores are going to be. You're more likely to have a higher percent correct with a smaller standard deviation, and that's going to make it very, very difficult to land a high score.
There's a trend there, somewhere.I remember making this lovely old graph in 2015 LOL with data from SDN. Full of biases and potentially flawed numbers
The NBOME released this a couple weeks ago, so likes like you were pretty spot onI remember making this lovely old graph in 2015 LOL with data from SDN. Full of biases and potentially flawed numbers
