Prevalence of test accommodations for the Medical Council of Canada Qualifying Exam Part I, 2013-2021

Previous articles have highlighted the laborious process of acquiring disability accommodations in medical education. We endeavoured to characterize the trends of test accommodations on the MCCQE Part I.

Data was obtained from the Medical Council of Canada on the number of applicants who attained test accommodations on the MCCQE Part I between 2013 and 2021. The number of test takers for the same period was obtained from the Medical Council of Canada's Annual Technical Reports; this data was not publicly available for 2013, 2014, or 2021. Prevalence rates and graphs were produced.

The number of test takers who attained test accommodations ranged from 35 to 126 between 2013 and 2021. The percentage of test takers who attained test accommodations ranged from 0.89% to 2.01% between 2015 and 2020. Per correspondence with the Medical Council of Canada, no applicant who provided all required documentation was denied test accommodations during this period.

The number and rate of test takers attaining test accommodations on the MCCQE Part I have increased substantially during this period. It is unclear whether this increase is due to greater rates of students with disabilities, or a reduction in stigma around using test accommodations.