Across the globe, schools and workplaces have adopted social distancing policies and remote work and learning where necessary to mitigate the spread of COVID-19. NBME continues to prioritize investigations into alternative assessment delivery methods for physicians, medical school faculty, and students.

We are actively working with the medical education and regulation community to also help expand testing opportunities for examinees.

Below, learn about available options for continuing testing:

Web-Conferencing with Remote Proctoring for Test Administrations during the 2020-2021 Academic Year

NBME® Subject Examinations, Customized Assessment Services (CAS), and International Foundations of Medicine® (IFOM)®

NBME Assessment Updates for Testing at Prometric Centers

New and Expanded Learning Resources available, including free NBME ® self-assessments and added answer explanations

USMLE Program weekly updates and resources available in response to the changing environment

Additional Resources

NBME remains committed to supporting continuity of the medical education system for the duration of the COVID-19 pandemic. We will continue to share new information as it becomes available.

Web-Conferencing with Remote Proctoring for Test Administrations available throughout the 2020-2021 Academic Year

Web-Conferencing with Remote Proctoring of Subject Examinations, Customized Assessment Services (CAS) and IFOM's web-based Basic Science Examinations (in English only) and Clinical Science Examinations (in English and Spanish) has been available since April 2020. All exams are also available for web-based administration with in-person proctoring. The medical school ordering system has been updated to enable schools to indicate whether their exams will be administered in person or remotely with web conferencing.

While the implementation associated with remote administration may evolve in different ways over the next several months, we anticipate its availability throughout the 2020-2021 academic year. We will continue to connect with educators, administrators, and clinicians to gather feedback and recommendations, share our findings, and discuss potential enhancements to this option.

NBME Services Portal . Executive chief proctors can access information about security and approved web-conferencing tools and obtain Web-Conferencing with Remote Proctoring instructions on the

Read a story about how NBME psychometricians examined the potential effect of the proctoring setting on examinee performance during the COVID-19 pandemic here. potential effect of the proctoring setting on examinee performance during the COVID-19 pandemic

NBME Subject Examinations, Customized Assessment Services, and IFOM

Subject Examinations

NBME® Subject Examinations are available for ordering and administration through the Web-Conferencing with Remote Proctoring option with the following exceptions:

Ambulatory Care (Medicine is recommended as a potential alternative)

Histology

Introduction to Clinical Diagnosis

All Subject Examinations are also available for web-based administration with in-person proctoring. The medical school ordering system has been updated to enable schools to indicate whether their exams will be administered in person or remotely with web conferencing.

Prometric test centers: Please check the Prometric website ongoing for updates.

Customized Assessments

Customized Assessment Services (CAS) is available for ordering and administration for Web-Conferencing with Remote Administration as well as in-person administration with physical proctors. Learn more here.

For institutions subscribing to CAS, detailed information can be found on the NBME Services Portal.

IFOM

Web-based Examinations: Web-Conferencing with Remote Proctoring of Web-Conferencing with Remote Proctoring of IFOM 's web-based Basic Science Examinations (in English only) and Clinical Science Examinations (in English and Spanish) has been available since April 2020.

All of the IFOM exams (including the Basic Science Exam in Spanish) are also available for web-based administration with in-person proctoring . The medical school ordering system has been updated to enable schools to indicate whether their exams will be administered in person or remotely with web conferencing.

Paper Examinations : Institutions considering IFOM exam administrations by paper anytime in 2020 must contact ifom@nbme.org to discuss their interest before placing orders.

IFOM Individual Testing at Prometric: Please check the : Please check the Prometric website for updates regarding test center closures and re-openings.

Registration for IFOM individual testing in 2020 has closed and will reopen in January 2021. Testing for both 2020 testing windows has been extended to Nov. 6, 2020.

For questions about Subject Examinations or Customized Assessments, please feel free to contact us at assessmentservices@nbme.org. To learn more about IFOM, contact us at ifom@nbme.org.

NBME Assessment Updates for Testing at Prometric Centers

NBME® exam programs are considered essential services programs (listed below) for testing at Prometric centers. For updates on site openings, please visit Prometric's announcement page.

Essential Services Programs include (in no particular order):

USMLE (Step 1, Step 2 Clinical Knowledge, and Step 3)

North American Veterinary Licensing Examination® (NAVLE®)

Certification examinations

IFOM*

NBME Subject Examinations*

* NBME Subject Examinations and IFOM are considered essential. However, to ensure that examinees for licensure and certification have a better chance of scheduling, NBME requests that medical schools use Web-Conferencing with Remote Proctoring for NBME Subject Examinations and school-based administrations of IFOM. More information is available above and in the NBME Services Portal.

Additional Resources

For information about USMLE, please visit the announcement site here.

Questions? Contact NBME Customer Support at https://www.nbme.org/contact or 215-590-9700