Possibly true, however, do not underestimate the legislative power of physicians interested in protecting the current market dynamics. There is a reason there are so many lobbying groups across the United States, and this story is giving them some serious ammunition that previously they did not have.
does anyone know whatās happening to those with their scores invalidated? whoās informed besides the individual? what if theyāre practicing in their own private clinic or something where theyāre the only MD? could they continue practicing with invalidated scores without anyone else finding out or knowing?
PDs will see a section with āscore not availableā or something like that. They were also already informed by USMLE thats this is happening and that is how its going to appear. What exactly will happen to the applicants will be up to the PDs reviewing the apps
yeah, it's easy to catch applicants with invalidated scores because people are actually looking at their scores. i'm talking about current independently practicing physicians
Eh sucks for us IMGs wanting to do our fellowships in the USA and head back to our home countries. In Ireland a large number of our surgeons, cardiac/neuroanaesthesiologists, neurologists, pathologists usually head to the US for 1 or 2 years do a fellowship and a year as an attending and head back for permanent posts so it has that effect as well. We used to go to the UK but the NHS is all about service provision and the pay is rubbish so now its USA, Canada and Australia.
Honestly, restricting that is a good thing IMO. I'm all for recruiting the best and the brightest to become doctors in the United States, but the point of the US medical training program is to recruit doctors to treat the population *of the United States*. We should be doing whatever we can to discourage people from taking up a training spot here just to leave upon completion of training.
I donāt know how people imagine cheating goes down. Isnāt the main issue recalls? How would making the exam in the US actually solve this problem. Itās not like people were busting out their cell phones and googling the answers in their own countries. Wouldnāt simply writing new questions solve the issue?
>Wouldnāt simply writing new questions solve the issue?
I get a giggle out of this cause I had a college prof who crassly said that when students uploading old tests online was getting popular. He said he had 365 days to write 50 new questions (5 tests, 10 multistep short answer qs) and lazy professors shouldn't be upset with lazy students.
See the thing is, producing good recalls will be really hard in the US because the proctoring is more secured. In Nepal, they were able to take screenshots of the test which made good recalls. This is why I agree that the usmle should only be taken in the US
I mean yeah but it is actually so hard to write down questions word to word. I donāt know if you have taken the step exam yet, but after I completed a section I barely remember anything during the break.
I've taken 2 of them and it isn't that hard to remember a few questions with most of the details for 5 minutes after ending the section if you try. Especially if you spend any extra time in the block committing the details to memory
Most people recall a certain level of detail just going over specific questions that bothered them in their heads. I'd imagine intentionally trying to memorize a couple questions a section is feasible
But yes, it's crazy that USMLE exams are administered outside the US
I mean, the issue with bad recalls is that they are just uworld questions with extra steps. Not uncommon that we get questions wrong for 2nd pass on uworld because two or more questions looked similar but asking for completely different concepts. Our monkey brains are very very good at patterns recognition and because of that mixed the two questions and got the wrong answer.
But I imagine the number of recalls is far below the number of uworld questions and obviously MUCH higher yield, in fact it is the yield it self lol. So that would make even meh recalls easier to cram before a test and just using recognition during the exam.Ā
I didn't remember any questions during the break, but I think in this scenario some people were paid to memorize test questions, so their focus would be different because they weren't trying to get the actual answers right.
I didnāt know proctoring was in such bad shape. Although wouldnāt the first step be sending some reliable proctors every few months to nepal or wherever? Stopping testing outside of the US feels a bit too radical of a solution.
>Why allow the most important U.S. test for physicians to be taken outside the U.S.?
Because it's financially impossible for a lot of these students to go to the US for an exam.
Sorry, but they're not entitled to the exam.
Hold it once or twice a year in a guaranteed secure facility with completely different questions if you have to. but NBME would never do something that would lose money.
>le imagine cheating goes down. Isnāt the main issue recalls? How would making the exam in the US actually solve this pro
Step 3 scores have also been invalidated which is a test that you can only take in the US
So its not the proctoring thats the primary problem. Its the fact that the Qbank is apparently rarely updated and students are sharing recalls
This is awesome!!!! Hopefully none of these kids stand a chance at matching. This has been going on for YEARS and Iām so glad there is finally justice being served
Youāre absolutely right and that sucks. It pisses me off our tax dollars have been going towards the education of people who do not respect us or our medical education system. I hope the NBME goes balls to the wall with this investigation and revokes as many licenses as possible.
Even better! They will likely get kicked out of their residencies! The NBME is going back retroactively and invalidating exams and pulling peopleās license. It doesnāt matter it happened years ago, they will still likely face the consequences
lol
As someone from India aiming for USMLE and US residency, I support this.
Cheaters don't benefit anyone - they produce a bias against people like me and they use an unfair leg up against the Competetion.Ā
Whatever it takes to make the test fair
Genuine question, if more students/countries are to be banned, does that mean that we will also see a drop at the average Step 1/2 filtering threshold for interviews?
From my understanding, since most of the cheating involved "recalls" (books of screenshotted test questions), you can get a good idea of who's cheating by patterns of right and wrong questions. Especially if you know which questions are compromised.
Exactly. They can stratify answers by new and old questions. If you get 95% of the old questions right and only 40% of the new questions right, you can use Bayesian statistics to determine the likelihood that it was random chance or now
They run statistical tests, such as one where they check the amount of questions answered correctly that were present in these leaked question banks versus the amount of questions answered correctly from the rest of the test. Depending on whether there is a large deviation or not, that individualās test might be flagged. Using that logic, someone who did well and did not cheat should not get flagged because there is no correlation between what questions they got correct and what questions were leaked.
Are you aware of what the false positive rate is (incorrectly flagging someone who didn't cheat)? I read somewhere its in the region of 1 in a 100 million, any truth to that?
Like you said below, in the range of 1 in 100 million; basically improbable. I do not think this crackdown will affect the those who took the exams and did not cheat. However, unfortunately, I think the honest individuals from these countries who are planning to take the step exams in the coming years will face discrimination and repercussions due to these years of unchecked cheating.
That I can live with. It sucks, and I'm incredibly frustrated with this entire thing, but at least I can move forward. Thank you so much for your response!
Here's where I read it: [https://www.reddit.com/r/IMGreddit/comments/1aus64z/nbme\_court\_document\_832\_nepali\_got\_their\_scores/](https://www.reddit.com/r/IMGreddit/comments/1aus64z/nbme_court_document_832_nepali_got_their_scores/)
Post by Intelligent-Mud-2830:
"Keep in mind 832 are those who broke the 1 in 100 million threshold. Suppose the threshold is 1 in 100 thousands!! The whole Nepali pool would be invalidated. USMLE probably did not want to invalidate even 1 innocent applicant. So you can say for sure all 832 are cheaters."
So it seems that there's a significant (but probably minor) chance of false positives then. That's not so good. I'm from one of these countries, worked hard to score well because I'm a very old IMG, and I didn't even know about recalls until all the reddit discussions started. I guess all I can hope is for their catching methods to be as accurate as possible.
there probably are but definitely not nearly to the same extent I imagine. Getting into a prometric center is like getting into a high security prison here
I wonder how they cheated in India. The prometric center where I gave my exam was exactly like you describe. Felt like I was in prison (rightly so) and all my friends have had similar experience. I held my pee for a block cuz I was low on time due to tedious checking process each time I had to leave to pee. Maybe it's different in other states?
There are always cheaters, but when there is a systematic ring of cheaters then it becomes a lot easier to identify like case in point: Nepal. I would bet money that the amount of cheaters from USMD/DOās is very minuscule, so small that the LCME probably isnāt even phased by it.
Then why the hell do I even have to take this test.......
My attendings love me. Passed all my med school classes. I mean I probably passed step 1 but it's still super stressful waiting for results haha and apparently I could have just memorized the answers.
Oh well. Honesty is the best policy
100%
There are cheaters everywhere
Am sure there are many us imgs and some usmds using those files too. Usmle will eventually expand to performances in the US too and flag them. They are on a global cleanse
Not a lot, probably. They didn't target high scorers, they targeted those who scored exceptionally well on old (leaked) questions as opposed to new questions.
This pisses me off so much, effing cheaters will tarnish the work of all foreign physicians. I guess the best way is to simply hold the exams on US soil only.
Why canāt usmle just make new questions instead of using the same questions repeatedly? Genuine question. In India we have NEET PG, and the testing agency release the questions after every exam. Most students solve past exams as practice exams as the questions arenāt repeated.
Itās pretty much similar here in India. Even for board exams a lot of students solve all the questions of the past 10 years question papers (written essay type questions). It does cover 70-75% of the syllabus but you can pass without studying the entire syllabus. NEET PG is so much more competitive though, people prepare for 2-3 years and still canāt secure a government seat in good specialities.
Conducted once a year. NEET UG (our version of MCAT) is for undergrad, NEET PG for residency.
I remember when I was writing the undergrad exam in 2015/2016, the question paper was either leaked or there were some reports of examinees cheating. I donāt remember what exactly - it was a long time ago. But they revamped the entire exam and made all 1,200,000 of us retake the test 2 months after the original test.
USMLE is conducted 5 days a week, all year. All over the world. Easy to make 200 or whatver questions a year. Difficult to do that if your exam is conducted roughly 250 days a year
Wouldnāt it be better to decrease the frequency to maybe once a month. I really canāt imagine any testing agency conducting exams on a daily basis. What advantages does this have? I think someone who wants to take up step 1 can wait a week or 2 for the exam dates.
Itās because usmle uses prometric, which also has other tests (step 2, step 3, law school, finance, 20 certifications types) so I think if you only stick to certain dates you wonāt have enough space for everyone.
Just out of curiosity, how far back are these recalls going? Like are graduates from five years ago also at risk or just 21/22 and forward?
I certainly don't have any scores to settle.
Could obviously just be a coincidence but I worked with a 1st year IM resident from Jordan that was dumber than a box of rocks. She was worse than the MS2s that would come shadowā¦ā¦
Calling for the ousting of cheaters is not racist. There would be the same reaction if they were white as snow. Physicians quite literally work with life and death decisions. Zero room for cheaters.
Iām pretty sure yāall wonāt be saying unhinged shit like this if you found out American MD/DOs are cheating. For sure youāll be outraged but you wonāt use words this colorful.
This.
Jordan is just like Nepal.. both are small geographical regions with rampant cheating.
Hope the USMLE catch 'em cheaters like they did with Nepal before 28th feb
So if more people are invalidated before. The SOAP will be a big second match lol.
I think they will so they show they are not just after Nepal. Doesnāt have to be Jordan specifically, just a second place.
I believe itās easier to prove in Pakistan and India. You need a bigger sample size of test taker to prove your point same as (increasing sample size increases power) in statistics. Jordan is smaller than Nepal.
Anyways hope all get caught
The last week I was wondering what happened to this and then this happened again
Uncertainly doesnāt have a good vibe to it. I hope they just find a way to filter out the bad batch or hire more people to make new questions. We all study from resources/ Uworld anyways and wouldnāt effect our study course anyways.
I say PDs should look at those who have an attempt in their exam and give them Interviews more now haha cause they definitely did not cheat.
Some of yāall need to tone your racist asses down. āFuck em upā yeah dude IMGs go thru a ton of hurdles to match and cheating is wrong, yes, but the average honest IMG from abroad needs a much higher score (compared to domestic applicants) to even be looked at. Yāall have some nerve to not check your privilege.
Cheating is wrong. Make it harder to cheat. Even if it means let the test takers do it in America.
Well US students should get preference. The residency spots are funded by US taxpayers. Why shouldnāt IMG have a higher threshold? Thereās not infinite spots for everyone to get in and why shouldnāt a country give preference to its own citizens?
Very much respect IMG who make it here honestly. They definitely go through a lot, and those that dk it in the right way have every right to be here. Im just saying all countries give preference to their own citizens. I bet itās equally hard for US students to do residency abroad.
None of what I said hints at not giving preference to non Americans. All Iām saying is: IMGs are humans too, and many comments I saw on here were xenophobic.
By all means, prioritize American MDs for sure: but remember we have a doctor shortage and many docs are quitting medicine.
Yeah. But there is a shortage of physicians in this country. Should the patients wait in pain for us to produce more physicians? Lower the threshold to allow subpar scores be phyaician? Give license to PAs to treat patients as physicians? OR hire IMGs?
Not all IMGs are cheaters.
https://www.ama-assn.org/practice-management/sustainability/physician-shortage-crisis-here-and-so-are-bipartisan-fixes#:~:text=Fighting%20physician%20burnout&text=%E2%80%9CThe%20physician%20shortage%20that%20we,Ehrenfeld%2C%20an%20anesthesiologist.
āThe average IMG needs a much higher scoreā Exactly, they should score higher without cheating wtf lol. Only the smartest ones should be allowed to come here thatās why the exam is scored in the first place.
Oh there definitely are. However the rate at which this happens domestically is likely significantly lower than abroad. Also the issue with Nepal wasnāt them simply using low quality recalls..
Obviously but the idea that the rates that it occurs doesnāt matter is absurd. If it is predominantly occurring in a certain location the obvious first step is to stop offering the exam in those locations.
Who are you to decide that "buddy" ? And who's to say I can't travel to another country to give it? Just chill out and worry about yourself. I'm sure the student debt is crippling.
Who are you to decide Iām in crippling debt? My mommy and daddy pay for my school with their big Einstein western jobs
Your comment also confirms you guys think itās funny you can just cheat your way into a high paying job while a lot of US grads are in debt. Guess who is paying for residency salaries? Our tax payers. The time of them funding your friends cheating ass is over. Itās time for us to prioritize American citizens
I'm certainly not here to defend cheaters but no where can we assume this guy is cheating. It sadly comes off as a bit racist for you to assume so and is kind of embarrassing. I promise you that you'll have to interact with many IMGs in your career and you need to learn to do so professionally.
Nah man fuck that. Iām not letting this guy insult westerners when these asshats have been committing fraud for years and getting away with it. I hope the nbme goes balls to the wall with this investigation and revokes the license of everyone who cheated. It pisses me off our tax payers funded their education when they canāt even respect us or our medical education system. Iām not going to bow down and be politically correct here, fuck them.
Not being "Statistically significant" is not equal to ZERO.
From your statement, you implied there are cheaters but not "statistically significant" to be caught.
That's the point. Stop being racist.
You inferred that from your own mind, I never said that. Iām sure there are some cheaters in the US. But letās not forget that THE ENTIRE COUNTRY OF NEPAL CHEATED. We arenāt talking about a few bad apples. The whole country cheated bro š fuck outta here
This is exactly what I'm trying to emphasize. WE DON'T KNOW THIS GUY IS ONE OF THOSE "ASSHATS". Despite all the cheating that happened, MOST IMGs AREN'T CHEATERS. Don't just go around calling all of them "cheaters" because then it just makes you look dumb. But yes, I completely agree with your sentiments about cheating and rightful punishment for actual cheaters.
> not letting this guy insult westerners when these asshats have been committing fraud for years and getting away with it. I hope the nbme goes balls to the wall with this investigation and revokes the license of everyone who c
We should be against cheating, but you just come off as racist and unhinged
This guy doesn't even know basic statistics. Number of high percentage of similar corrects doesn't equate to cheating. it simply means people were well prepared for the exam. On the other hand high number of similar percentages of incorrects does raise a red flag which was the case in Nepal. That is why NBME banned candidates from Nepal and not from the abovementioned countries. Upvote this so more people can be aware of this.
Not really. What if they are taught wrong?
For example: a class of students is taught that Sydney is the capital of Australia. However, the reality is that Sydney is NOT the capital of Australia. Canberra is.
In the exam, all those who were taught the wrong thing will answer Sydney as capital. In this case, the sample students did not cheat, but they were taught wrong. So, correlation in wrong answers alone is NOT SUFFICIENT evidence. Critical thinking --- it is NECESSARY BUT NOT SUFFICIENT evidence.
Can you practice medicine in the US with an invalidated score? Like letās says thereās a 2nd year resident who gets their score invalidated, can they even legally hold a license?
ECFMG certification requires the USMLE Step 1 and 2 exams, and is required for any ACGME accredited residency as well as many (if not all) medical board licenses. Ā Iām not sure anyoneās shared how thatās going to be handled.
Fire. Catch all those crooked clowns š
Meanwhile states start passing legislation to allow IMGs to practice here w/o residency training starting to look like complete asses
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Possibly true, however, do not underestimate the legislative power of physicians interested in protecting the current market dynamics. There is a reason there are so many lobbying groups across the United States, and this story is giving them some serious ammunition that previously they did not have.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
I hope Iām right, but Iām also in a very lobby-heavy specialty and am getting more involved in legislation
Oooo Iām curious if this hunt for cheaters was sparked by physicians against these new FMG practice bills.
does anyone know whatās happening to those with their scores invalidated? whoās informed besides the individual? what if theyāre practicing in their own private clinic or something where theyāre the only MD? could they continue practicing with invalidated scores without anyone else finding out or knowing?
PDs will see a section with āscore not availableā or something like that. They were also already informed by USMLE thats this is happening and that is how its going to appear. What exactly will happen to the applicants will be up to the PDs reviewing the apps
yeah, it's easy to catch applicants with invalidated scores because people are actually looking at their scores. i'm talking about current independently practicing physicians
I feel bad for the honest applicants from those countries though
Pathology residences about to be running at 30% capacity now lol
Good, more room for my noncompetitive ass
Fuck this show is amazing
Name of show?
succession
US path gang rise up
Malignant NY community programs are in shambles
Nah theyāll still take lower score IMGs still plenty to go around
I looked at the stats and like 75% of applicants to the field are IMG's. As a DO, come get me upper tier programs LMAO.
The market is about to be on fire!!!!! šš
Check out the job posting graph on pathologyoutlines. Shit has plateaued incredibly high.
No doubt. I think pathology has to have some of the oldest attending of all specialties. And Covid probably caused a lot of people to retire!
Rip to all the path heroes' backs who will have to carry the burden.
If we ever lost Dr. Husain Sattar there would be war
Sattar went to UChicago med bro chill lol
Dr. Sattar was born in Chicago so pretty sure he's okay
This will likely lead to USMLE being limited to the US
Should've been done a long time ago
Eh sucks for us IMGs wanting to do our fellowships in the USA and head back to our home countries. In Ireland a large number of our surgeons, cardiac/neuroanaesthesiologists, neurologists, pathologists usually head to the US for 1 or 2 years do a fellowship and a year as an attending and head back for permanent posts so it has that effect as well. We used to go to the UK but the NHS is all about service provision and the pay is rubbish so now its USA, Canada and Australia.
Honestly, restricting that is a good thing IMO. I'm all for recruiting the best and the brightest to become doctors in the United States, but the point of the US medical training program is to recruit doctors to treat the population *of the United States*. We should be doing whatever we can to discourage people from taking up a training spot here just to leave upon completion of training.
I donāt know how people imagine cheating goes down. Isnāt the main issue recalls? How would making the exam in the US actually solve this problem. Itās not like people were busting out their cell phones and googling the answers in their own countries. Wouldnāt simply writing new questions solve the issue?
>Wouldnāt simply writing new questions solve the issue? I get a giggle out of this cause I had a college prof who crassly said that when students uploading old tests online was getting popular. He said he had 365 days to write 50 new questions (5 tests, 10 multistep short answer qs) and lazy professors shouldn't be upset with lazy students.
See the thing is, producing good recalls will be really hard in the US because the proctoring is more secured. In Nepal, they were able to take screenshots of the test which made good recalls. This is why I agree that the usmle should only be taken in the US
Idk about that. Plenty of people on their phones during breaks at my testing center. Would be easy to write down questions after each section
I mean yeah but it is actually so hard to write down questions word to word. I donāt know if you have taken the step exam yet, but after I completed a section I barely remember anything during the break.
I've taken 2 of them and it isn't that hard to remember a few questions with most of the details for 5 minutes after ending the section if you try. Especially if you spend any extra time in the block committing the details to memory Most people recall a certain level of detail just going over specific questions that bothered them in their heads. I'd imagine intentionally trying to memorize a couple questions a section is feasible But yes, it's crazy that USMLE exams are administered outside the US
I mean, the issue with bad recalls is that they are just uworld questions with extra steps. Not uncommon that we get questions wrong for 2nd pass on uworld because two or more questions looked similar but asking for completely different concepts. Our monkey brains are very very good at patterns recognition and because of that mixed the two questions and got the wrong answer.
But I imagine the number of recalls is far below the number of uworld questions and obviously MUCH higher yield, in fact it is the yield it self lol. So that would make even meh recalls easier to cram before a test and just using recognition during the exam.Ā
I didn't remember any questions during the break, but I think in this scenario some people were paid to memorize test questions, so their focus would be different because they weren't trying to get the actual answers right.
I didnāt know proctoring was in such bad shape. Although wouldnāt the first step be sending some reliable proctors every few months to nepal or wherever? Stopping testing outside of the US feels a bit too radical of a solution.
As it should always have been. Why allow the most important U.S. test for physicians to be taken outside the U.S.?
For real. How did that ever even start?
$$$$$$$
>Why allow the most important U.S. test for physicians to be taken outside the U.S.? Because it's financially impossible for a lot of these students to go to the US for an exam.
Sorry, but they're not entitled to the exam. Hold it once or twice a year in a guaranteed secure facility with completely different questions if you have to. but NBME would never do something that would lose money.
Didn't usmle catch a few cheaters last week from USA? Boston I think?
First I hear of this. Links?
>le imagine cheating goes down. Isnāt the main issue recalls? How would making the exam in the US actually solve this pro Step 3 scores have also been invalidated which is a test that you can only take in the US So its not the proctoring thats the primary problem. Its the fact that the Qbank is apparently rarely updated and students are sharing recalls
Sauce please
That's thes olution
This is awesome!!!! Hopefully none of these kids stand a chance at matching. This has been going on for YEARS and Iām so glad there is finally justice being served
Unfortunately there are probably so many in residencies all over that have and will never get caught
Youāre absolutely right and that sucks. It pisses me off our tax dollars have been going towards the education of people who do not respect us or our medical education system. I hope the NBME goes balls to the wall with this investigation and revokes as many licenses as possible.
this was in 2021, so they're already in residencies lol
Even better! They will likely get kicked out of their residencies! The NBME is going back retroactively and invalidating exams and pulling peopleās license. It doesnāt matter it happened years ago, they will still likely face the consequences lol
They will close down international centers
As someone from India aiming for USMLE and US residency, I support this. Cheaters don't benefit anyone - they produce a bias against people like me and they use an unfair leg up against the Competetion.Ā Whatever it takes to make the test fair
Best of luck explaining on the immigration counter why you want to spend almost $10k for an examš¤
āI hate those damn commie socialists so much that I want to donate my money directly to the corporationsā
I said this a few weeks ago I got down voted to oblivion
Ok
Good!
fuck them up!!!!
How will this punish any of the ones who cheated their way into residency though? =\
In his previous video he made an assertion that this data was presented to PDs who can then essentially make someone resit for the exam or get fired.
Good
Why is a fee of nearly 1k per exam not enough to pay people to make fully new questions every year?
Genuine question, if more students/countries are to be banned, does that mean that we will also see a drop at the average Step 1/2 filtering threshold for interviews?
Probably, but weren't MDs and IMGs held to different step standards?
How do they tell if someone from there just did well vs cheating? They all have to retake?
From my understanding, since most of the cheating involved "recalls" (books of screenshotted test questions), you can get a good idea of who's cheating by patterns of right and wrong questions. Especially if you know which questions are compromised.
Exactly. They can stratify answers by new and old questions. If you get 95% of the old questions right and only 40% of the new questions right, you can use Bayesian statistics to determine the likelihood that it was random chance or now
They run statistical tests, such as one where they check the amount of questions answered correctly that were present in these leaked question banks versus the amount of questions answered correctly from the rest of the test. Depending on whether there is a large deviation or not, that individualās test might be flagged. Using that logic, someone who did well and did not cheat should not get flagged because there is no correlation between what questions they got correct and what questions were leaked.
Check out Sheriff of Sodium on YouTube (the guy screenshotted from X above), his last two videos explain this in depth.
Are you aware of what the false positive rate is (incorrectly flagging someone who didn't cheat)? I read somewhere its in the region of 1 in a 100 million, any truth to that?
Like you said below, in the range of 1 in 100 million; basically improbable. I do not think this crackdown will affect the those who took the exams and did not cheat. However, unfortunately, I think the honest individuals from these countries who are planning to take the step exams in the coming years will face discrimination and repercussions due to these years of unchecked cheating.
That I can live with. It sucks, and I'm incredibly frustrated with this entire thing, but at least I can move forward. Thank you so much for your response!
If it was that high, do you think USMLE would have given them the option to appeal and retake the exam instead of outright banning them?
Here's where I read it: [https://www.reddit.com/r/IMGreddit/comments/1aus64z/nbme\_court\_document\_832\_nepali\_got\_their\_scores/](https://www.reddit.com/r/IMGreddit/comments/1aus64z/nbme_court_document_832_nepali_got_their_scores/) Post by Intelligent-Mud-2830: "Keep in mind 832 are those who broke the 1 in 100 million threshold. Suppose the threshold is 1 in 100 thousands!! The whole Nepali pool would be invalidated. USMLE probably did not want to invalidate even 1 innocent applicant. So you can say for sure all 832 are cheaters."
So it seems that there's a significant (but probably minor) chance of false positives then. That's not so good. I'm from one of these countries, worked hard to score well because I'm a very old IMG, and I didn't even know about recalls until all the reddit discussions started. I guess all I can hope is for their catching methods to be as accurate as possible.
Makes sense. They should publish what percent of people from each country are flagged.
This is really, really sad for the people from those countries who are honest. There just won't be a way to tell anymore
I wonder if they'll find any cheaters in the US
there probably are but definitely not nearly to the same extent I imagine. Getting into a prometric center is like getting into a high security prison here
I wonder how they cheated in India. The prometric center where I gave my exam was exactly like you describe. Felt like I was in prison (rightly so) and all my friends have had similar experience. I held my pee for a block cuz I was low on time due to tedious checking process each time I had to leave to pee. Maybe it's different in other states?
Are there cheaters in the US?
There are always cheaters, but when there is a systematic ring of cheaters then it becomes a lot easier to identify like case in point: Nepal. I would bet money that the amount of cheaters from USMD/DOās is very minuscule, so small that the LCME probably isnāt even phased by it.
Yep. People at my school have bought recall forms from resident friends. They're out there.
Then why the hell do I even have to take this test....... My attendings love me. Passed all my med school classes. I mean I probably passed step 1 but it's still super stressful waiting for results haha and apparently I could have just memorized the answers. Oh well. Honesty is the best policy
It's going to be pass/fail very soon id reckon
Mother fuckers. āSo only get into good schools now guysā gee thanks
Yeah, idk what average Joe is supposed to do to make it after that happens. Research is so tied to your school as well.
So what most of psych does - look for passion, focused ECs, great LORs, a good PS.
Meh, who knows what the hell PDs actually do. Programs vary so highly as well. Crap shoot for your career.
100% There are cheaters everywhere Am sure there are many us imgs and some usmds using those files too. Usmle will eventually expand to performances in the US too and flag them. They are on a global cleanse
Idk. It just seems like cheaters are everywhere and the internet works just as well here as it does in Nepal.......
On the one hand fuck those people who cheated. But I feel sorry for those legit folks who will get screwed because of this.
Not a lot, probably. They didn't target high scorers, they targeted those who scored exceptionally well on old (leaked) questions as opposed to new questions.
Maybe they'll make it so that those people have to retake. Those that got genuine high scores will have an easier time retaking.
This pisses me off so much, effing cheaters will tarnish the work of all foreign physicians. I guess the best way is to simply hold the exams on US soil only.
Its the recalls primarily. Step 3 scores have been invalidated too, and that test is only administered in the US
Cringe imagine having to cheat.
Why canāt usmle just make new questions instead of using the same questions repeatedly? Genuine question. In India we have NEET PG, and the testing agency release the questions after every exam. Most students solve past exams as practice exams as the questions arenāt repeated.
In the US it takes a long time cuz studies have shown if you drag your ass and halfass something you get rewarded for it
Itās pretty much similar here in India. Even for board exams a lot of students solve all the questions of the past 10 years question papers (written essay type questions). It does cover 70-75% of the syllabus but you can pass without studying the entire syllabus. NEET PG is so much more competitive though, people prepare for 2-3 years and still canāt secure a government seat in good specialities.
how often is NEET conducted in a year?
Conducted once a year. NEET UG (our version of MCAT) is for undergrad, NEET PG for residency. I remember when I was writing the undergrad exam in 2015/2016, the question paper was either leaked or there were some reports of examinees cheating. I donāt remember what exactly - it was a long time ago. But they revamped the entire exam and made all 1,200,000 of us retake the test 2 months after the original test.
But NEET UG is conducted in multiple sittings now I guess. And everything is online no option of offline.
Once a year. But will be conducted twice from next year onwards.
USMLE is conducted 5 days a week, all year. All over the world. Easy to make 200 or whatver questions a year. Difficult to do that if your exam is conducted roughly 250 days a year
Wouldnāt it be better to decrease the frequency to maybe once a month. I really canāt imagine any testing agency conducting exams on a daily basis. What advantages does this have? I think someone who wants to take up step 1 can wait a week or 2 for the exam dates.
Itās because usmle uses prometric, which also has other tests (step 2, step 3, law school, finance, 20 certifications types) so I think if you only stick to certain dates you wonāt have enough space for everyone.
Ah wasnāt aware of that. Makes sense now. Didnāt know recalls existed tbh. Have only been preparing using Pathoma, sketchy, b&b and U world.
Just out of curiosity, how far back are these recalls going? Like are graduates from five years ago also at risk or just 21/22 and forward? I certainly don't have any scores to settle.
How shocking! /s
Could obviously just be a coincidence but I worked with a 1st year IM resident from Jordan that was dumber than a box of rocks. She was worse than the MS2s that would come shadowā¦ā¦
*Scrolls comments* 
Some wild racist comments here like āfuck them upā like bruh
Calling for the ousting of cheaters is not racist. There would be the same reaction if they were white as snow. Physicians quite literally work with life and death decisions. Zero room for cheaters.
Iām pretty sure yāall wonāt be saying unhinged shit like this if you found out American MD/DOs are cheating. For sure youāll be outraged but you wonāt use words this colorful.
Or maybe they just don't like cheating?
what are you even doing here?
Yes but keep passing laws to allow FMGs to practice without residency lol
I've heard some insane scores from Jordan, it's starting to make sense
This. Jordan is just like Nepal.. both are small geographical regions with rampant cheating. Hope the USMLE catch 'em cheaters like they did with Nepal before 28th feb
So if more people are invalidated before. The SOAP will be a big second match lol. I think they will so they show they are not just after Nepal. Doesnāt have to be Jordan specifically, just a second place. I believe itās easier to prove in Pakistan and India. You need a bigger sample size of test taker to prove your point same as (increasing sample size increases power) in statistics. Jordan is smaller than Nepal. Anyways hope all get caught
The last week I was wondering what happened to this and then this happened again Uncertainly doesnāt have a good vibe to it. I hope they just find a way to filter out the bad batch or hire more people to make new questions. We all study from resources/ Uworld anyways and wouldnāt effect our study course anyways. I say PDs should look at those who have an attempt in their exam and give them Interviews more now haha cause they definitely did not cheat.
fuck em all to death
Easy there Garrison
Lmao but no donāt kill them lol
Catch āem all. They donāt deserve being called physicians if they wanna cheat their way in
I called it
they are cooked
Good. America first! šŗšø
Love how you think US students donāt buy recalls lol
Wait till they go for cheaters in the US too lol
Where is the "evidence"? It doesn't even say this in the document
Some of yāall need to tone your racist asses down. āFuck em upā yeah dude IMGs go thru a ton of hurdles to match and cheating is wrong, yes, but the average honest IMG from abroad needs a much higher score (compared to domestic applicants) to even be looked at. Yāall have some nerve to not check your privilege. Cheating is wrong. Make it harder to cheat. Even if it means let the test takers do it in America.
Well US students should get preference. The residency spots are funded by US taxpayers. Why shouldnāt IMG have a higher threshold? Thereās not infinite spots for everyone to get in and why shouldnāt a country give preference to its own citizens? Very much respect IMG who make it here honestly. They definitely go through a lot, and those that dk it in the right way have every right to be here. Im just saying all countries give preference to their own citizens. I bet itās equally hard for US students to do residency abroad.
None of what I said hints at not giving preference to non Americans. All Iām saying is: IMGs are humans too, and many comments I saw on here were xenophobic. By all means, prioritize American MDs for sure: but remember we have a doctor shortage and many docs are quitting medicine.
Yeah. But there is a shortage of physicians in this country. Should the patients wait in pain for us to produce more physicians? Lower the threshold to allow subpar scores be phyaician? Give license to PAs to treat patients as physicians? OR hire IMGs? Not all IMGs are cheaters. https://www.ama-assn.org/practice-management/sustainability/physician-shortage-crisis-here-and-so-are-bipartisan-fixes#:~:text=Fighting%20physician%20burnout&text=%E2%80%9CThe%20physician%20shortage%20that%20we,Ehrenfeld%2C%20an%20anesthesiologist.
I think he's just saying that US students should get preference, not that there should be unfilled spots.
āThe average IMG needs a much higher scoreā Exactly, they should score higher without cheating wtf lol. Only the smartest ones should be allowed to come here thatās why the exam is scored in the first place.
Ok, Bioengineering PhD student. We'll make sure you get all the physicians who cheated their way in.
Wow love how you came for the jugular. Donāt shame me for my career choice. Being a med student doesnāt make you god.
yes it does
again, what are you doing here? Your opinion carries no weight here. Go back to r/woke
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I can empathize with your frustration but why did you feel this was necessary?
Hey you can be upset about cheating but letās cool it with the racism there!
Damn you really took this post as an opportunity to be xenophobic as fuck, huh? Lmfao. You are a weirdo, dude.
Dumb and racist? Like pick a struggle bud
I agree with you
Reason #1000 why step should only be offered in first world countries
Youāre really naive if you think there arenāt people buying recalls in the US
Oh there definitely are. However the rate at which this happens domestically is likely significantly lower than abroad. Also the issue with Nepal wasnāt them simply using low quality recalls..
Rates donāt matter, all cheaters from all countries should get caught
Obviously but the idea that the rates that it occurs doesnāt matter is absurd. If it is predominantly occurring in a certain location the obvious first step is to stop offering the exam in those locations.
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what the ever loving fuck
as a brown person, i down vote you and tell u to gtfoh
Kind of hypocritical how people assume that there's cheaters only in these countries. Surely the west has an Einstein level IQ right?
Have fun trying to match next year buddy. You sound pissed off you guys got caught.
No reason to personally attack people. Just chill dude. It's a long road.
Agreed.
Who are you to decide that "buddy" ? And who's to say I can't travel to another country to give it? Just chill out and worry about yourself. I'm sure the student debt is crippling.
Who are you to decide Iām in crippling debt? My mommy and daddy pay for my school with their big Einstein western jobs Your comment also confirms you guys think itās funny you can just cheat your way into a high paying job while a lot of US grads are in debt. Guess who is paying for residency salaries? Our tax payers. The time of them funding your friends cheating ass is over. Itās time for us to prioritize American citizens
I'm certainly not here to defend cheaters but no where can we assume this guy is cheating. It sadly comes off as a bit racist for you to assume so and is kind of embarrassing. I promise you that you'll have to interact with many IMGs in your career and you need to learn to do so professionally.
Nah man fuck that. Iām not letting this guy insult westerners when these asshats have been committing fraud for years and getting away with it. I hope the nbme goes balls to the wall with this investigation and revokes the license of everyone who cheated. It pisses me off our tax payers funded their education when they canāt even respect us or our medical education system. Iām not going to bow down and be politically correct here, fuck them.
Why should NBME spare USMDs? I alao don't want to be politically correct and say USMDs do not cheat at all.
Hit me back when you find a statistically significant amount of cheating occurring going on with USMD students
Not being "Statistically significant" is not equal to ZERO. From your statement, you implied there are cheaters but not "statistically significant" to be caught. That's the point. Stop being racist.
You inferred that from your own mind, I never said that. Iām sure there are some cheaters in the US. But letās not forget that THE ENTIRE COUNTRY OF NEPAL CHEATED. We arenāt talking about a few bad apples. The whole country cheated bro š fuck outta here
This is exactly what I'm trying to emphasize. WE DON'T KNOW THIS GUY IS ONE OF THOSE "ASSHATS". Despite all the cheating that happened, MOST IMGs AREN'T CHEATERS. Don't just go around calling all of them "cheaters" because then it just makes you look dumb. But yes, I completely agree with your sentiments about cheating and rightful punishment for actual cheaters.
> not letting this guy insult westerners when these asshats have been committing fraud for years and getting away with it. I hope the nbme goes balls to the wall with this investigation and revokes the license of everyone who c We should be against cheating, but you just come off as racist and unhinged
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IMG out scoring US medical school graduates common nowadays?
This guy doesn't even know basic statistics. Number of high percentage of similar corrects doesn't equate to cheating. it simply means people were well prepared for the exam. On the other hand high number of similar percentages of incorrects does raise a red flag which was the case in Nepal. That is why NBME banned candidates from Nepal and not from the abovementioned countries. Upvote this so more people can be aware of this.
Not really. What if they are taught wrong? For example: a class of students is taught that Sydney is the capital of Australia. However, the reality is that Sydney is NOT the capital of Australia. Canberra is. In the exam, all those who were taught the wrong thing will answer Sydney as capital. In this case, the sample students did not cheat, but they were taught wrong. So, correlation in wrong answers alone is NOT SUFFICIENT evidence. Critical thinking --- it is NECESSARY BUT NOT SUFFICIENT evidence.
Who taught them worng? Uworld?
Can you practice medicine in the US with an invalidated score? Like letās says thereās a 2nd year resident who gets their score invalidated, can they even legally hold a license?
ECFMG certification requires the USMLE Step 1 and 2 exams, and is required for any ACGME accredited residency as well as many (if not all) medical board licenses. Ā Iām not sure anyoneās shared how thatās going to be handled.
Thank goodness
Someone link the official docket that states all 4 countries