Computer-delivered patient simulations in the United States Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE)

To obtain a full and unrestricted license to practice medicine in the United States, students and graduates of the MD-granting US medical schools and of medical schools located outside of the United States must take and pass the United States Medical Licensing Examination. United States Medical Licensing Examination began as a series of paper-and-pencil examinations in the early 1990s and converted to computer-delivery in 1999. With this change to the computerized format came the opportunity to introduce computer-simulated patients, which had been under development at the National Board of Medical Examiners for a number of years. This testing format, called a computer-based case simulation, requires the examinee to manage a simulated patient in simulated time. The examinee can select options for history-taking and physical examination. Diagnostic studies and treatment are ordered via free-text entry, and the examinee controls the advance of simulated time and the location of the patient in the health care setting. Although the inclusion of this format has brought a number of practical, psychometric, and security challenges, its addition has allowed a significant expansion in ways to assess examinees on their diagnostic decision making and therapeutic intervention skills and on developing and implementing a reasonable patient management plan.