ReviewCureus2026
Pass/Fail Grading and United States Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE) Step 1 Reform: Implications for Clinical-Year Assessment and USMLE Step 2 Clinical Knowledge (CK) Performance.
Review in Cureus, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The transition to pass/fail grading in undergraduate medical education (UME), alongside the change to pass/fail reporting for the United States Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE) Step 1, represents a substantial shift in assessment across the medical education continuum. These reforms were motivated by concerns regarding learner well-being, excessive competition, and misalignment between assessment practices and educational goals. This narrative review synthesizes empirical, survey-based, and conceptual literature to examine the effects of preclinical pass/fail grading and Step 1 pass/fail reporting on learner outcomes, clinical-year assessment, and USMLE Step 2 Clinical Knowledge (CK) performance. Across national and institutional studies, preclinical pass/fail grading is associated with improved learner well-being without evidence of inferior Step 1 or Step 2 CK performance. Early post-reform evidence suggests that Step 1 pass/fail reporting has redistributed evaluative emphasis toward Step 2 CK and clinical-year performance measures, raising concerns regarding variability and equity in workplace-based assessment. Collectively, the literature underscores the importance of transparent, equitable, and programmatic assessment systems during the clinical years.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.