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Medical students nationwide, with backing from some medical schools, are pushing to kill a required standardized test that they say is expensive and adds little, The Washington Post reported. The test is known as the Step 2 Clinical Skills exam and theoretically determines whether medical students have bedside manner and problem-solving skills. Medical students complain that the test costs $1,275. Further, because the test is offered in only five cities, many students must pay additional travel costs. Students say that their own medical schools could, without much expense, test the same skills covered in Step 2.
Those involved with the test defend it. “Licensing boards have to have some bellwether to say this student has the competence to go into practice,” Kim Edward LeBlanc, executive director of the Clinical Skills Evaluation Collaboration, which oversees the Step 2 exam, told the Post. “The students bring up some legitimate concerns. But after 14 years on a licensing board, I can tell you that I would not feel comfortable giving a license to someone without this exam.”
