Perceptions of the Emergency Medicine Resident Selection Process by Program Directors Following the Transition to a Pass/Fail USMLE Step 1

Beginning January 26th, 2022, the National Board of Medical Examiners transitioned scoring of the United States Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE) Step 1 from a 3-digit score to pass/fail. In the past, the Step 1 score has been weighted heavily by program directors (PDs) as one of the most important metrics when assessing medical student's competitiveness. The objective of this study was to evaluate the perceptions of emergency medicine (EM) PDs on the transition to a pass/fail USMLE Step 1 exam, and to elicit the opinions of EM PDs on the USMLE examinations' ability to predict resident performance. A survey consisting of ranking and multiple-choice questions was sent to EM PDs. The multiple-choice questions were asked to determine EM PDs level of confidence in the ability of Step 1 and Step 2 Clinical Knowledge (CK) to predict a student's ability to succeed in residency. The ranking questions focused on assessing each program's current resident selection practices in comparison to expected selection criteria changes following a transition to pass/fail Step 1. R studio and MATLAB were used for statistical analysis, and a P value