Purpose

To assess the utilization of genetics on the United States Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE®).

Methods

A team of clinical genetics educators performed an analysis of the representation of genetics content on a robust sample of recent Step 1, Step 2 Clinical Knowledge (CK), and Step 3 examination forms. The content of each question was mapped to curriculum recommendations from the peer reviewed Association of Professors of Human and Medical Genetics white paper, Medical School Core Curriculum in Genetics, and the USMLE Content Outline.

Results

The committee identified 13.4%, 10.4%, and 4.4% of Steps 1, 2 and 3 respectively, as having genetics content. The genetics content of the exams became less pertinent to the questions from Step 1 to 3, with decreasing genetics content by exam and increasing percentages of questions identified as having genetics content in the distractors only.

Conclusion

The current distribution of genetics in USMLE licensing examinations reflects traditional curricular approaches with genetics as a basic science course in the early years of medical school and de-emphasizes clinical relevance of the field. These observations support the notion that further integration is required to move genetics into the clinical curriculum of medical schools and the clinical content of USMLE Step exams.

中文翻译：

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培训下一代基因组医学提供者：医学教育和国家评估的趋势。

目的

评估遗传学在美国医学执照考试 (USMLE®) 中的应用。

方法

一组临床遗传学教育工作者在最近的第 1 步、第 2 步临床知识 (CK) 和第 3 步考试表格的稳健样本上对遗传学内容的表示进行了分析。每个问题的内容都映射到来自同行评审的人类和医学遗传学教授协会白皮书、医学院遗传学核心课程和 USMLE 内容大纲的课程建议。

结果

委员会分别确定了步骤 1、2 和 3 的 13.4%、10.4% 和 4.4% 具有遗传内容。考试的遗传学内容与第 1 步到第 3 步的问题的相关性降低，考试中的遗传学内容减少了，并且被确定为仅在干扰项中具有遗传学内容的问题的百分比增加。

结论

目前 USMLE 执照考试中遗传学的分布反映了传统的课程方法，在医学院早期将遗传学作为基础科学课程，并淡化了该领域的临床相关性。这些观察结果支持将遗传学纳入医学院临床课程和 USMLE Step 考试的临床内容需要进一步整合的观点。