USMLE: United States Medical Licensing Examination
To practice medicine in the United States and its territories qualified medical graduates need to obtain license. The medical licensing authorities (state medical boards) of the various jurisdictions grant a license to practice medicine. Each medical licensing authority has separate rules and regulations. Candidates requires passing an examination which showcase qualification for practicing medicine. USMLE fulfils this requirement. Prospective candidates can write USMLE to competency for practicing medicine. USMLE Results are reported to state medical boards for use in granting the initial license to practice medicine.
The governing members of USMLE comes from the ECFMG, FSMB, NBME, and the public. This committee is responsible for the overall direction of the program, identifying and approving procedures for scoring and determining the pass/fail standard, and all significant policies and procedures.
The Members of USMLE test committees are biomedical scientists, educators, and clinicians from every region of the United States. Virtually all LCME-accredited medical schools in the United States have been represented on USMLE test committees. USMLE test committee members represent a “national faculty of medicine” drawn from medical schools, state medical boards, and clinical practice settings across the United States.
The USMLE was created in response to the need for one path to medical licensure for allopathic physicians in the United States. This has replaced need for multiple examinations (the NBME Parts examination and the Federation Licensing Examination [FLEX]) offered paths to medical licensure. It was desirable to create one examination system accepted in every state, to ensure that all licensed MDs had passed the same assessment standards – no matter in which school or which country they had trained. Today all state medical boards utilize a national examination – USMLE for allopathic physicians, COMLEX-USA for osteopathic physicians.