There have been many comments and questions about why this situation was classified as cheating. 1. The issue is that the questions that were studied (memorized) by the students who cheated came directly from Step exams. It’s clear policy from USMLE that all test takers agree not to take or distribute test questions. This is because some test questions are going to be the same from one exam to the next. 2. This situation is different than studying practice questions from UWORLD, for example, since the questions from UWORLD are sample questions designed to help you learn the material, not direct copies of questions from the real exam. UWORLD designs these questions rather than taking them word for word from the exam. 3. There’s a big difference between memorizing something and actually understanding it. The entire purpose of USMLE Step exams is to ensure a certain level of competency in US doctors. Memorizing stolen questions and answers might result in scoring well, but it doesn't result in medical understanding. This is why USMLE is so strict on their rules about no one sharing the questions they encountered on the actual exam. Bottom line: Utilizing practice questions from reputable sources that aim to teach you the material is completely okay. No matter where your practice questions come from, aim to learn the actual material, not just the exact wording of the question. And don't buy practice questions from questionable sources.
If you do this in the UK (where I am currently) it would be considered academic fraud - not a great trait for a doctor in medicine. This would be reviewed by appropriate medical associations resulting in them losing any ability to apply for licence to practice in the UK, it’s a complete professionalism concern
The UK medical licensing authorities are notorious for going after doctors aggressively for even the smallest infractions even more so than the US. Minor issues such as lying about wanting a laptop (google this)!
I would slightly disagree..... What they are describing is recalls (where many people that give the exam remember the questions and options and creating a bank from that)..... I don't think that this is illegal in the UK or in most places in the world. For example, someone could do an OSCE exam (eg- MRCP UK and remember the stations and note it down- would that be something they would be investigated by the GMC - I don't think so..... But if someone tried getting an unfair advantage by for example not declaring that they know the patients or examiners, or visit the hospitals prior to exam, then that would be investigated by the professional bodies like GMC.....
@@mukundnarasimhan4865 yeah its probably not illegal per se. but definitely against any existing guidelines and can lose their license. Some country do make it illegal (so cheaters can be prosecuted then send to jail).
@@mukundnarasimhan4865that's a stupid comparison tbh. each usmle exam is 8-9hrs long and you literally work ur ass off for months together cramming up literally everything and these people just read those questions just showing up in the exam. N btw, the exam questions don't change for a few months so its literally reepated line to line. Don't u think that's wrong?
What cutoff do you think the NBME should use? 1:100 million seems like far too many cheaters will pass through the system. I doubt most legal scholars would quantify beyond a reasonable doubt as 1:100 million, and that standard is used to potentially put someone in jail. Meanwhile, the NBME’s punishment is to retake the exam.
I think the problem was how much exam info they were sharing and how unfairly they were creating a database of the exact exam material (very, very silly and careless). First Aid, for example, I was told, was created in the same way (students who took the exam shared the topica with the authors). And I am sure FA is reviewed every year reflecting the change in questions (also based on new NBME forms that are already available for practice). Students went too far. I am absolutely certain that this happens even more in other bigger countries. Nepal was made a scapegoat. Anyone found to have had any unfair advantage needs to unfortunately be penalised.
@@karmak8006Have you read any copy of first aid in the last 10 years? Comparing first aid to sharing exact questions is comical. First aid is probably 1000 pages covering extensively small details over vast medical topics while the recall question bank had what 1000 exact test questions. More countries are being investigated. My understanding was a student in Pakistan had scores invalidated. Is that not true?
Well, cheating is too harsh a word. It seems the USMLE questions were repetitive and not innovative. People around the world refer past questions to prepare for the exam. Telegraph group or not, but the USMLE questions lacked innovative approach and relied on past questions to conduct the exams. Let me tell you, these doctors, mostly from Institute of Medicine (IoM) prepare almost a decade of their time, from high school till they graduate, studying and praticing almost 17-18 hours a day.
@@TimeTraveller390Ah yes, it is not the invalidated test takers fault, it is the NBME’s fault for making the test too easy to cheat. So did the doctors from the institute of medicine only study stolen questions? We will find out soon enough when these students have to retake the exam. If they even have the guts to do so.
Coming from a person who did schooling, high school, and bachelor's from Nepal, this is actually what we are encouraged to do by our teachers. For our 10th-grade examination, for instance, it is a norm to buy a book that has all the previous year's examination questions and, if one practices just from that book a score of 80% or above is pretty much guaranteed.
wait, I thought they had cheated, but if they just studied based on a large question bank made with recent USMLE tests, then how is that different from just studying? does the USMLE not change its questions every year? That sounds kinda lazy... sorry if I misunderstood something, I am not from the US or Nepal, I am just curious about the case, and that detail is something that left me a bit confused
It's because the questions were live, active questions and weren't released by NBME. UWorld hires physicians to generate their own questions. Resources like First Aid are about general high-yield concepts. Telling others about active, non-released questions so they can improve their score is cheating. There's no point in a test where you can just memorize all the exact questions and correct answers. They can't change the questions every year because it's harder to generate good questions with good stats, especially in the clinical vignette form, than it sounds. The question has to be read more or less the same way by every student and have four reasonable but distinctly incorrect distractor answers (harder than it sounds). Out of the 280 questions on Step 2, a bunch of them are tester questions that don't count towards your score. It's time-consuming and expensive. Even if you don't think what they did is cheating, when you sit the exam, you sign a statement before you start that's VERY clear they'll invalidate your score and pursue legal action if you reproduce the active exam questions for others (I remember this, I just sat for Step 2 a couple of weeks ago). So they were told the consequences and they did it anyway.
@@shinyumbreon696 I see thanks for the information, all the entrance exams from my country just change their questions every year (including the residency entrance exams) so it's pretty normal to study from questions from previous years, so I wasn't familiar with the concept, thanks for the info :) and to be honest still think not changing the questions seems pretty lazy considering a lot of other countries do it and a quick Google search shows it costs a pretty penny to take these tests (some guy on Quora said it costs 1,105 dollars to take step one) but if they had established rules against what those students did, then what they did was against the rules, even if it looked strange from the outside, they should have followed those rules to avoid any trouble it's like what the local saying from my country says: Those with power will give the orders. and those with sanity will obey them.
@@flaminmongrel6955both are at fault. Cuz, there are always few bad apples trying to cheat their way onto the the top. So basically NBME should not try to give them a chance n those cheaters shouldn't have done that in the first place
Exactly, I'm shocked they could even sit for the exam again. There's nothing to prevent them from rememorizing the questions and just intentionally getting a couple wrong this time around so they get a more normal score.
@@ArwenisawesomeThey may prep an exam with questions that 100% have not been leaked (never been used before) so prior cheating wouldn't work again and if they really knew their stuff they could pass and do well.
I read that some folks paid up to 1-2K for these questions🧐 for this much, you can actually buy a course w/Q bank, maybe even some tutoring hours, actually study & pass. Especially Step 2 and 3. If you have gone through med school /early residency and you can’t pass the clinically oriented Steps🤔 … you really do need remediation.
i dont think it's about passing. the astronimical difference between a "passing" step 2 score and a 280 is well worth spending even up to 10k. (im not condoning cheating by any means)
"Why study when they can get 100% by memorizing answers for 2K?" Uworld for step 1 costs about $550 per year, for 2 years it's above 1K (only questions, no tutoring) and you will not get a repeat question on the real deal (Step 2/3 are not pass/fail). Average U.S medical school costs about 70K per year, I know this because I am a U.S medical student. (I absolutely want these cheaters to get caught, and get punish to full extent, because at the end of the day they are harming the patients).
@@wanderlust1334 it’s heartbreaking because I have seen my friends take this test, proceed to fail. The fact multiple countries were incriminated in this means the passing minimum would have been raised and would hurt the honest students who didn’t cheat. Even if my friends that failed pass the test on the next try, they will be barred from many residents and thus many specialities as a result of being honest and hard working
@@its9333I feel you I failed STEP 1 first time but working my butt off to crush STEP 2 and was encouraged by a close friend of mine who is a year ahead (I did a gap year) and they matched into a competitive specialty after failing STEP 1 the first time! It's still possible and failures don't define our entire future 👍
Great breakdown. The reality of the situation is that if you take a test and share answers with a friend who hasn't taken it yet, it's cheating. What people also have to realize is that when you take STEP and leave the test center, you are required to sign a document stating "I will not share questions/answers with other people". Yes, people are going to talk about the questions they got that stumped them but no one is making a large booklet of questions and sharing that. What people also need to realize is that agreement analysis looks at the questions you get right in addition to the questions you get wrong. When a collective of people are getting the exact same questions right AND wrong, something fishy is going on. On questions: People need to realize that creating questions is harder than you think, that's why the USMLE will reuse some while implementing new ones every year. That's why in the USMLE exams, there are "experimental" questions that get tossed out. Fun fact, almost 1/4 of your exam questions are thrown out.
What is interesting is that we are discussing about medical knowledge gaps, perhaps boosting a score from a 220 to a 240, and the impact this has with treating patients, while we have NPs in the US establishing independent practices. I am not saying one is less concerning than the other, I am just laying out how messed up our system has turned itself into.
Dude ultimately scores matter believe it or not. That's one of the differentiating factors. So desperate people take desperate measures like this. It's disgusting
US med student here who recently took STEP 1 (hopefully passed lol) - I was also recently diagnosed with ADHD while in med school and now I'm wondering if there is negative stigma with me taking adderall. I know it is legally prescribed to me, but somehow it feels like people still think I'm taking a "shortcut" because I am medicated. When in reality I still had to sit there for 14 hours a day studying just like everyone else until I felt too tired to eat or sleep. Medication only helps me stay focused, but it does not solve all the other executive dysfunction issues that ADHD comes with. It was still a struggle and a challenge every day to stay organized and on track with studying. More and more people are getting diagnosed with ADHD every day (whether due to overdiagnosis or underdiagnosis), and I really hope there's less stigma and misinformation regarding stimulant usage moving forward. I'm glad Dr. Jubbal brought that up.
I still remember studying for 14-15 hours a day before a month of the Step 1 and Step2 CK exam, going through multiple revisions. After coming to know about this, this is really very heartbreaking. They should be banned from ever taking the Exams again.
How can you blame student sir. There is nothing very special about the USMLE exam they are based on the same textbook that are being followed in Nepal too and beside group discussion and past year recall question practice is part of clearing your concept.
@@pravuyaduwansi956 If there is nothing special about USMLE then there is nothing special about Neet Pg as well. It's not about ability of test taking of student, it's about the moral integrity of a student who is going to become a doctor to serve his/her patients. This is the reason why so my IMGs get 260s and 270s and don't get matched into Residency in the US.
Bro what you did for just a month to pass usmle we studied like that for year that also to just get a seat to study mbbs there might be few cheaters which are surely in every other countries as well what marks you are considering as suspicious is really not sO uncommon for us to secure considering how our education system has trained us
@@Shreyash_bhandari Dude I am too from India coming from Calcutta and I also came through the same system which you are talking about. I too have seen it all- saw both the system.
@pravuyaduwansi956 You don't know what you are talking about. This isn't about getting a question right by pattern recognition. These people haven't learned to think critically like a doctor and analyze the complexities of the case. They memorized a test question bank which can be done in a day or two. That doesn't mean you know shit.
I feel that this video is a little biased. While I am definitely against all people who used recalls and cheated in other ways, I feel that that this video somehow targets all IMGs by saying that all of them will be affected. This doesn't make sense as there IMGs who took their exams in the U.S with U.S medical students. Therefore, it is not fair to include all of them in one bracket. Not to forget to mention that applications such as Telegram are also available in the U.S. It doesn't make sense that U.S medical students are not using them too. Investigation should also include U.S medical students and should affect them equally. Yes, cheating might be more rampant in Nepal, but that doesn't exclude other countries. Also, there are many top programs (not just community hospitals or family medicine programs) that rely on IMGs. In fact, many of the chairs at top institutions are IMGs. Instead of targeting specific countries and all IMGs, I believe that you have mentioned a very valuable solution, which is changing question pool regularly.
How long can someone with high passing score gotten from cheating pretend to be a knowledgeable student? They’re gonna be called out immediately I had one of these people in my rotations who we suspected was a cheater because they absolutely had zero understanding of the most basic concepts. Can someone with a 240+ step 1 not know a single side effect of ace inhibitors? It’s not possible!
If these leaked exam questions are available online then that means anyone can access them even the students in the USA. Is there going to investigation for US students as well? Since the standard deviation of the test is based on the performance of US students, if their scores get invalidated, will the scores of other students change ?
some students from Nepal reported the cheating to NBME and NBME got hold of screenshots of questions that they were using. Thats when this whole thing started. I remember reading NBME statement on this idk where@@flaminmongrel6955
@@kbb92 recent exam questions aka recalls are readily available online and anyone can access them no matter if they are in the US. So everyone should be investigated.
@@Dr.stoic007 They had the exact exam questions from the test; with video proof of them taking pictures of the exam questions. They violated a legally binding contract that states not to share any information from the exam. You can't twist that around to make it ok, when it clearly states not to and you agree to it. You can't do any of that in any of that in US testing centers. You are thoroughly searched each time you break. I don't understand why IMGs are so bitter toward US students. Working hard and going to a medical school and matching into a residency in your own country is some how an injustice to IMGs? US students don't even get that long to study for the exams. Months - weeks of dedicated time. If anything you have way longer to study. US students are not attacking IMGs, but for some reason you feel like the fact that US medical students simply exist is wrong and somehow they've wronged you?
I used to proctor for advanced Anatomy courses in college. My professor who made the exam warned me to make sure I had meticulous notes about what structures we highlighted because students would come into the lab and switch the flags so the other pre-meds would get the wrong answer and they would look better.
I thought the whole point of having to do these exams through rigid computer, software, and the reason why it takes so long for scores to come back, was because they were monitoring for these kinds of things. How the hell was this allowed to go on for so long?
This is so weird. I completed my high school in Nepal and i am currently doing my BSN in US. There is no comparison of the education system of nepal and USA. You cannot compare them. I wonder how a US student would react to , if he gets put in one of the medical classes of nepal. It is tough and rigorous. Nothing like what you teach in US. Honestly what they are teaching in college, i already studied in my 8th grade. So coming and questioning the capabilities of a medical doctor from nepal is dumb. They have passed more tougher exams that USMLE itself. I doubt if you ever saw the cutoff of those entrance exams. And cheating part ,while i was giving my hesi i was recommended to use nurse hub by my own professor, which i did. Turns out all the questions I did in exam were mentioned in nurse hub somewhere. I made a perfect score. And nursehub is not some random illegal app. It is the most widely used app ,by nursing students in US. How did they got the questions word to word? It is not just in nursing school. I am 100% sure they might have similar big brand app to study for NCLEX and USMLE. Everything works like this in US. You either get quizlet with same question online or you purchase premiums and get through it. From driving license test to Starbucks interview , nursing to medical school.
Womp womp. If they went through tests that were much more difficult back in their own country, what prevented them from passing USMLE without making the same mistakes on the same questions like some sort of a hive mind, or getting the answers wrong on questions that were not specifically leaked, when they were supposed to study that topic thoroughly in the first place? Go ahead and deny the statistics, lol. Those cheating nepalis are just plain lazy and dishonest, that’s it. It’s a disgrace to even let them retake the test.
It’s known for years in countries like India, Syria ,Iran , Russia that they have closed groups of many med students who study together then after taking exam they come out of exam and share the questions with non takers . Some doctors non are board certified doctors and they are practicing in the U.S. with successful business I have never agreed that move and never been part of those groups so I got stuck in the USMLE process for years .
I really don't see the problem here, just don't repeat the questions. You cannot stop it, this is what we do here domestically in medical exams. Because you cannot really stop people from talking about stuff and neither can you keep cancelling scores based of perceived suspicion of being "too good".
Cheating shouldn’t be allowed but, I don’t think the Nepalese past students accumulated the past questions. Those questions were most likely accumulated in other countries then, made available for purchase which Nepalese students got their hands then, shared among friends since Nepal is close knit society. In order to prevent this NMBE needs to come up with other ways to conduct the test or, different set of questions every time and, the test centers should be strictly monitored.
If WhatsApp or telegram groups discussion are cheating then even past doctors who matched this should be scrutinised ! This must be going on for years ! Why only cancel scores for this current match ? Then what about those students who already matched ?
In short, NBME repeats its past questions in its exams repeatedly, making it relatively easy to cheat. Therefore, NBME should modify their Qbank accordingly.
Not sure how to say this but memorizing the questions is a part of the process.(at least in our place, not in Nepal btw) Everyone knows it (even the administrators who make the questions) and the students recollect all the past questions then study around the same topic. In this method it is considered cheating if you are caught writing the question or actively noting it down anywhere near the premises. However, I think the difference in US exam and in our system is the questions never get repeated. Do 1000 past questions, chances are only 1 might be repeated. So, yes the Nepal students have cheated according to this but I guess more like they found a loophole and took the e advantage. Do NOt repeat the exact questions 🤷♀️ I’m not kidding we do so many past practice questions and we know we will get like questions around RS or CVS from valvular heart disease or COpd but each time the questions are testing on something different. It’s is rarely repeated. Also the cheating is with written papers so, how are they tested for clinical. In clinical even if you get the same patients there is no way you’ll be assessed the same as your colleagues. So, doesn’t USMLE have a way to eliminate those by equally assessing the clinical performance and written papers.
For those who are unclear in my uni we divide the number of question a student should remember and then later recall the questions and the next batch of students study them. 🤷🏻♀️
You have the best common sense. Yeah of course, in the rest of the world, they practice question banks, past test questions ... because you process better and remember better when you practice questions in stead of just reading the texts... It is the examiner who was supposed to use different wording each time to ask questions, not repeating the exact same damn questions. Besides USMLE is long exam with physical assessment tests involved...there is no way you can pass it without going through medical school. Hence the docs from Nepal may have cheated by USMLE definition, but the problem was just how ill prepared USMLE was.... It is good that now USMLE caught it... but instead of correcting the docs from Nepal, they shall change now onwards their question each time...... It is funny that Nepal got caught, otherwise half of the world was doing the same thing to pass that USMLE :)
Honestly, it's very sad cheating and stimulants have become so prevalent. Most of my friends are pre-med and I can't name one that hasn't cheated. In the moment I didn't think much of it because of how prevalent it is but now that I am about to graduate and they are about to go to med school I understand the concern. Once you have a habit of cheating you don't just stop so we are going to have a generation of doctors that cut corners. That is a scary and very sobering thought so hopefully, this investigation grows and develops methods to curb cheating within med school boards.
The whole "Oh you must have used stimulants if you're doing well" thing sounds like projection to me. THEY used stimulants to do well, or aren't doing well without stimulants, therefore everyone who did well must be using stimulants.
@@shinyumbreon696 I don’t think reading comprehension is your forte. I said this because Ik what the people do. You can do well without stimulants but Ik they are using them.
@@christian-gu5oq I'm sure they are. I'm agreeing with you, and saying that I think the "If you're doing well you must be using stimulants" argument Kevin talked about in the video stems from the fact that they're so common among high achievers like you say.
Who got hurt the most? Sadly patients. Personally worked with some of these IMGs and not going to lie, I’m genuinely concerned for some of their clinical knowledge, mannerism and ethics while taking care of the patients. That is not exclusive to only IMGs, US DOs and MDs too, but the percentage and likelihood with IMGs is scary.
Yes it is!! let's say you have an exam tomorrow that contains 50 questions and your friend who took that exam last semester gave you (only you and no one else in the class) 100 questions (with answers) and told you those questions will be same. I promise you, you will not touch any book or lectures and memorize all the answers. I also promise you, you will get all those questions right (if you have a good memory) whereas your other classmates will miss questions. Now tell me, is it cheating or is it normal where are you from? But at the time, your classmates will have better knowledge about the subject than you.
@@alizain9638it might be cheating , but I can assure you that lot of them are doing these recall question based studying especially in the eastern part of the world , but that’s the norm here .
@@Sameer-rj3kc hold on, did you just say it's cheating and then said it's normal to cheat in eastern part of the world? I'm not surprised that education system in east is pretty bad that they have to start cheating on USMLE. I don't know about you, I would not touch a book or lecture if I already know the questions and get 100% on every exam without going to class or opening any book/lecture. It's not studying when you're memorizing answers. My 15 year old brother can memorize questions/answers if someone gave him those questions and probably get 100% on USMLE. I'm just saying, it's not fair for honest nepali med students who are actually studying and not cheating. I'm just a regular med student in U.S. and I don't think I will recommend anyone to go to a Nepali/Indian/Pakistani doctor after this cheating scandal. And nobody can say it's "not cheating" because it is cheating. Math does not lie.
@@alizain9638 oh bro you are drawing lot of conclusions there , when it comes to exams in India it’s one of the hardest as well , but we do recall question in the sense that these questions don’t get repeated here , topics do , so memorising won’t help the case , do you get it ? Also the solution to the board is change the questions is it too difficult for them to do that ?
@@Sameer-rj3kc I completely agree with you and Medical examination should be hard because at the end of the day you have to treat actual patients. But if someone in your class does not do thousands of questions and have exact copy of exams that will show up on the exam, that's cheating and that person should be punished. USMLE does change questions frequently, and there is whole systematic approach on how they change the questions. Google it. Or watch video of Sheriff of Sodium on how USMLE change their questions and how often they change it. This means these countries have their own cheating system in place and I am glad USMLE is catching these cheaters. There's a difference in Q-bank and actual exam questions.
How come there isnt some sort of practical for IMGs? Im a foreign vet and the ECFVG requires the CPE which is a 3 day practical exam testing you in 5 things - small animal internal medicine, large animal internal medicine, surgery (spay), anesthesia (you are supposed to be the anesthesiologist) and pathology (necropsy). Wouldn't some sort of variation of that be reasonable for IMGs?
Well, cheating is too harsh a word. It seems the USMLE questions were repetitive and not innovative. People around the world refer past questions to prepare for the exam. Telegraph group or not, but the USMLE questions lacked innovative approach and relied on past questions to conduct the exams. Let me tell you, these doctors, mostly from Institute of Medicine (IoM) prepare almost a decade of their time, from high school till they graduate, studying and praticing almost 17-18 hours a day.
@@mindtube7726 I donot believe on other false accusations until I see it with my eyes. In todays world most of the time propagandas happens due to peoples tactics.
Something to consider with regards to similar answers, is that some schools train you to write and think the same way. There is a "regurgitate" culture in these countries and even where I'm from in the Caribbean. So you're practicing questions and you're writing what a teacher has trained you to write which would get all marks. If that makes sense.
@@jayanttotlani263 Pretty sure it's happening in other countries like India, Pakistan and many other countries. It is just that Nepalese doctors were caught coz they were boasting the score on the Social media.
@@jayanttotlani263 It happens everywhere but in India it is different, we here the students are taught thoroughly at least for medical examinations because questions rarely repeat but they still teach us what questions were presented. They pay certain students to come describe questions right after they come from exams then use them as a way to teach students about what to expect. But I can assure you most Indian students who clear Indian exams would be able to crack USMLE because most people I know who cracked and failed at domestic tests described the USMLE format and questions as comparatively very easy.
@@flaminmongrel6955Problem is that is all BS excuses. Terms you agree to when you take the exam include NOT discussing any question or content on the exam. This approach requires you to break agreement and be dishonest so you would be a moral failure not deserving to be a physician.
So how exactly is India cheating more than Nepal? Are they bribing testing center officials? I have Indian-American friends who have alluded to similar things happening in India. Are recall question banks more extensive there, but the distribution is only in person with no paper trail? Please tell.
@@paperringpinkI’m Indian and the above comment is not racist at all. The comment talks about stopping cheaters from taking the test again. It would be same for IMGs, as well as for US grads. You don’t want your PCP to be someone who pass the medical licensing exam by cheating!
A score does dictate the type of doctor one can be....it is just a score. Test questions are way more complex than what real patients are. This is crazy to do it by the nbme!
7:42 I don't think it is wrong or they were cheating. The collective and combined way of learning and taking references from past questions. All the students do that everywhere. Isn't it time for the test takers to make new and innovative questions every time, instead of repeating the same questions or patterns. These doctors, to reach there and take the test have spent studying more than 12 hrs/ day for nearly a decade, so they are the most smartest people around. I think blaming the students but ignoring their lack of creativity in setting questions is not fair. If the board can prove that their question papers were leaked, only then they can accuse? 😢. I have seen couple of such videos, It has blamed the students and that is quite sad and unfair. 😢
Sorry but it’s cheating. When you take the exam you sign something saying that you won’t discuss answers/questions. From the statistical analysis, they found that people were getting the same answers right as well as wrong suggesting that they aren’t performing from their knowledge base but rather due to nefarious reasons.
The number of people actively admitting to cheating in this comment section is astonishing. YES, recalling active exam questions and sharing them with people who haven't taken the test IS CHEATING. Using those questions obtained from other students is cheating. It doesn't matter if you rationalize it as using your gigabrain memory to "beat" the test; you are giving/receiving an advantage over others based on inside knowledge. It also doesn't matter if YOU don't think it's cheating because before you sit the exam, there's a big freaking disclaimer at the beginning that you have to click "agree" on that saying NBME considers the reproduction and distribution of exact questions to be cheating and they will invalidate your score. These students were clearly told the consequences of what they did and did it anyway. If they didn't take those warnings seriously, that's on them. Many people here also don't seem to understand the amount of time, money, and effort it takes to generate NBME-style questions. Questions aren't just written and slapped onto the test, they're also edited by multiple people and focus-tested on examinees to make sure only good ones get through. You ever taken a test where questions have to be thrown out because they were confusing or one of the "wrong" answers choices could be reasonably argued as true? NBME isn't immune to that and bad questions can't be on board exams. If you take Step 2, dozens of those questions are testers that don't count towards your score, and they're only added to the question bank if they perform well enough. They can't write thousands of untested new questions every year to fill multiple versions of a 280-question test, and recycling questions isn't just "laziness" on the NBME's part. That's not how any of this works. I know I sound like an NBME shill, and I'm not. I'm a med student; I get frustrated with them too. Studying for Step exams sucks. The amount of power they have over your entire career sucks. But given what they did, and how clearly they were warned, I think NBME is responding appropriately to what happened.
Isn’t it already questionable when these graduates that barely speak English are passing an exam that is one of the hardest exams in the world and each question is paragraphs long with extensive vocabulary. How do program directors not question this? Most incredulous is that they will be practicing medicine and I heard many of these students have not even completed medical schools and going straight to taking the exams.
Nepal, India, Pakistan and Jordan as mentioned in the videos are all former British colonies with a huge no of fluent English speakers. Only 10% of Indians speak english but it is more than the native English speakers in the US . Plus all the medical training in these countries is done in English. Please don't be so ignorant
this is a really disheartening situation imo. some bad apples should not be spoiling it for the bunch (the bunch being all FMGs). it reminds me of something I learned from Freakonomics where they discussed cheating and said how anyone can cheat if the stakes are high enough. this is esp true for FMGs who are desperate to be a doctor in a high income country like the US so they can build a better life. I think a good way to solve the problem is to make Step 1 pass/fail for them if it isn't already. also I think that investigation of the current STEP resources available to students at their home countries/med schools need to be done to ensure that they have equitable access. imo, in order to prevent future cheating, there has to be serious attempts taken to make admissions for FMGs to be more holistic vs so heavily dependent on test scores.
Hii, have you also paid attention to scores from lebanon, syria, egypt. I saw many students score more than 260 on step scores from there too on my linkedin. May be they too have these types of behaviour too of circulating old and recent past questions.
@@dr.soufianeabdouh2991 I'm Indian and most doctors and program directors are indians. We literally can't do anything this is going to affect us life long. I just know that Indian doctor are very brilliant and since years we are successful in US health care system . Money would be a major issue
Im a third year nepali med student in the US. This is just sad to see and very disappointing. I'm honestly scared to apply to residency even as a US citizen after these cheaters have tainted Nepal's name and reputation
Cheating was incredibly prevalent when I finished up college in 2016. People were abusing Adderall all the time and cheating on exams and coursework. The outcome is more important than the process.....
This would be more like practicing and practicing rather than calling cheating. Maybe the fancy country accused them cheating because they were not being able to provide enough seats for their domestic students so they targeted specifically smart peoples majority in from group and accused them of cheating. If they are cheating they should provide the cctv video something. Some peoples are so hardworking I have seen they read under one candle whole night and day. I didnot saw this cheating at all. Looks like just a accusation.
Ya they studied the stolen questions under candle light all day. That is cheating. The USMLE has specific rules regarding sharing questions from the exam. They cheated by knowing what the questions were going to be beforehand. Video recordings would not prove or disprove that accusation.
While this is obviously a massive breach, if the practicing physicians and residents are good doctors i dont find as much of an issue with this. The standardized exams are a really poor predictor of how good of a doctor someone will be, so im not as worried about whether patients are at risk here. Obviously its quite unfair to the rest of students who honestly take the exams but im not as hardlined on this as others may be. Giving them the chance to take it again and pass honestly is completely fair to me
I know many good, hardworking IMGs but sometimes I wonder about the ones who could barely speak/communicate in English but got very high scores on USMLE. Also, I recently had a conversation about USMLE, with an IMG from Nepal, who came to the US to apply for residency positions, and quickly realized that she had very limited knowledge of basic USMLE content but somehow passed both Step 1 and 2.
So i was looking for a support group online hoping to find people to ask about their USMLE journey because unfortunately I do not know a lot of people who are on the same journey.. and I was shocked to have been included to multiple group chats with people offering help in cheating.. providing latest questions etc.. its crazyyy. I was so scared of getting involved that i left the group chats.. and yes its not just Nepal. I saw people from multiple countries there
Imagine the scores display instantly after the exam, so the proctors/any officials can gather the data talked about (time taken for answering questions, similarities in rights and wrongs, etc) with AI, and detect suspicious activity on the testing day itself. If the data suggests a more than 50% likelihood of cheating amongst all test takers, then all scores in that center would be invalidated then and there. It's easier to isolate testing centers and ban them this way too. It also alleviates anxiety around waiting for 2 weeks or so for the results. The falsely accused can then appeal to NBME (time waiting on the appeal > time waiting for the score), re-take the test in another center, or do nothing. The craziest thing would be to only have all the step exams available exclusively in the United States or Canada if they can't analyze data every year for each country where the test is available. But given that we have the efficiency of AI, it wouldn't take long to have a global analysis either.
the bigger concern is the fact that these tests were originally designed for "passing" not identifying people for program eligibility and ranking. in an arms race, cheating will be more common.
Prometric and their affiliates should be sued. Workers in prometric were bribed and allowed students to bring in phones to record on video their exam and use their phones during the exam to either search or make calls. Students were answering questions in 10 to 12 seconds per questions with 98% accuracy
They need to do investigations thoroughly, the US included. This process is simply too gruesome for the cheaters to get away with it at the expense of the honest students and at the expense of patient safety.
In my opinion why is usmle recycling the questions…it’s almost as if students will recycle questions. Nepal and India I think the entirety of South Asia students use past question material to estimate the pattern of questions that can come in the future. It’s smart study. Usmle hates students who outsmart them apparently. And I understand that the exam is trying to test the understanding at the level that the exam is rather than the memory ability..but memory and knowledge is almost proportional imo…
You must have acquired sufficient knowledge by memorizing 1000 pages of material which is equivalent to reading and solving Uworld material. Why is called cheating? If these students answers are correct it means they know the subject by reading that full clinical material from recalled knowledge. Recollection of vast material is also talent and not cheating.
What? When I was 18 taking exam for University we were sold so many questions saying those questions were asked in the past and made it practice, very few or almost none came in my exam but same things happens in every competitive exam When the entire system does it, every other person does it you don't even think you were cheating. This scandal has shown me the other side of the argument.
I don't think that says anything. I can easily read and understand languages I'm learning but speaking my mind goes blank. So reading and understanding can be a little different from speaking, but I would assume to sit for an exam that hard you should be well versed in the language.
Using stimulants really isn’t cheating on these exams. Ultimately, if you don’t have the knowledge or reasoning skills, you’re not gonna do well on them
well it is in this instance, 9 hours of an exam is very endurance driven even if you know the stuff. And using it as a means to gain advantage is. especially if they are banned substances
Get their license, sue them and send them home. These cheaters are harming patients. After wining in court, give that money to U.S students or make USMLE free to take in U.S.
My hot take is that the US should be less inviting to IMGs. There’s plenty of bright students here that want to be doctors but can’t because of cutthroat (and sometimes arbitrary) admission standards, all of which stem from not having enough residency positions. It’s also very sad to see the brain drain in developing countries that need bright physicians. It’s hard tho because I get wanting to immigrate to the US to make a better life for yourself and your family, especially after all the brutally hard work you’ve put in to becoming a physician
i mean, i get what you're saying of course, but some of em literally live in places where it's dangerous for them and their families, and where there are no opportunities. should their talent really go to waste because of where they were born? it's a pretty sad situation imo, i think there should be something done so that more residency places are made available
My man, I know why they wondered about Adderall; your speaking speed is like 3x. I had a patient who was accused of cheating on a nursing exam. For a variety of reasons, I don't believe she cheated, and the program was known for being very harsh on students. As a result, she got a 0 on the exam; as a result, she failed the course. As a result of that, she was suspended for a year; as a result of that, she was unable to transfer to another school. And as a result of all that? She was required to pay-back her loans for that year, and was unable to secure loans to continue even when re-admitted. She lived alone & her first-generation immigrant family never knew she'd had to leave school. Her life literally fell to pieces. I stopped hearing from her. I made efforts to contact her, but never did hear back, and to this day, I don't know what happened to her.
I'm not saying that what these students did is okay - a judge obviously ruled on this for a reason. But I'm not sure I understand the difference between this, and going through practice exam papers? Those are often also just old exam questions, so why is that not considered cheating, if you remember the answers to those practice exams?
A lot of people condemning these people, crying that it harms patients, yet I knew at least a quarter of my classmates to have cheated to various extents, or done other unethical things. Funny how students and residents think they’re perfect saints. Y’all need a long look in the mirror. Before anybody @ me, I’m a perfectly average USMLE scorer. I gain nothing by defending these morons.
If you're not cheating you're not not trying hard enough. 😂😂. I feel sorry for Nepal med students who played it straight. Also the question of doping is pretty much done. Back in med school only 10% of my class was on PEDs aka ritalin. Now it's 90% of most classes. You literally need it to be competitive. When you consider kids are taking drugs just to get into med school outright cheating is simply the next step
Why the fuck they repeat the same questions? Of course, they created this whole mess by not being too innovative with their questions, but cheating is wrong!
I worked my butt off in 3 phlebotomy school and passed and got certificates I didn’t get a chance to take my national exam but I was allowed to practice through supervision and now I am doing emt and working very hard and I was looking up study guides and materials to study for whatever chapter I am doing and I come across a bunch of here is the answeres to this quiz or when I had to get my ICS 100 NIMS from fema and Is. 700.b getting ready for the exam I did what I usually do find study material and there was here is the answers to the fema exam I was upset. Why would I do that cheating gets you no where! And people who cheat on medical exams will not know how to treat their patients! And other things known basic medical terminology and the equipment you will need to use to save lives and they cheated oh God help us please!!!
Is really practicing past question cheating i mean we study past year questions before every exams that is our studying strategy and now you consider that as cheating
These people should be fucking monitored if they need to take the exam again. Like seriously. There is a doctor shortage. Also, test taking skills do not mean much in the long run if they want to become a physician. Reality is that I felt like I was cheating when my hair was undone, did not shower, and barely ate on time just to do well... it is all some memorize and regurgitation shit and not real learning. It is doable but not sustainable long term, in that short test taking period, it just all becomes an act.
There have been many comments and questions about why this situation was classified as cheating.
1. The issue is that the questions that were studied (memorized) by the students who cheated came directly from Step exams. It’s clear policy from USMLE that all test takers agree not to take or distribute test questions. This is because some test questions are going to be the same from one exam to the next.
2. This situation is different than studying practice questions from UWORLD, for example, since the questions from UWORLD are sample questions designed to help you learn the material, not direct copies of questions from the real exam. UWORLD designs these questions rather than taking them word for word from the exam.
3. There’s a big difference between memorizing something and actually understanding it. The entire purpose of USMLE Step exams is to ensure a certain level of competency in US doctors. Memorizing stolen questions and answers might result in scoring well, but it doesn't result in medical understanding. This is why USMLE is so strict on their rules about no one sharing the questions they encountered on the actual exam.
Bottom line: Utilizing practice questions from reputable sources that aim to teach you the material is completely okay. No matter where your practice questions come from, aim to learn the actual material, not just the exact wording of the question. And don't buy practice questions from questionable sources.
Glad to have this vid, I’d seen various posts here and there about this but didn’t know what was going on, thanks for the explainer!
Thanks Rohin :)
If you do this in the UK (where I am currently) it would be considered academic fraud - not a great trait for a doctor in medicine. This would be reviewed by appropriate medical associations resulting in them losing any ability to apply for licence to practice in the UK, it’s a complete professionalism concern
This is true for every where, just some places it’s badly enforced sadly
The UK medical licensing authorities are notorious for going after doctors aggressively for even the smallest infractions even more so than the US. Minor issues such as lying about wanting a laptop (google this)!
I would slightly disagree.....
What they are describing is recalls (where many people that give the exam remember the questions and options and creating a bank from that).....
I don't think that this is illegal in the UK or in most places in the world.
For example, someone could do an OSCE exam (eg- MRCP UK and remember the stations and note it down- would that be something they would be investigated by the GMC - I don't think so.....
But if someone tried getting an unfair advantage by for example not declaring that they know the patients or examiners, or visit the hospitals prior to exam, then that would be investigated by the professional bodies like GMC.....
@@mukundnarasimhan4865 yeah its probably not illegal per se. but definitely against any existing guidelines and can lose their license. Some country do make it illegal (so cheaters can be prosecuted then send to jail).
@@mukundnarasimhan4865that's a stupid comparison tbh. each usmle exam is 8-9hrs long and you literally work ur ass off for months together cramming up literally everything and these people just read those questions just showing up in the exam. N btw, the exam questions don't change for a few months so its literally reepated line to line. Don't u think that's wrong?
How do you feel about the judge's verdict? Do you agree, and what do you think should happen to students who cheat on medical exams?
What cutoff do you think the NBME should use? 1:100 million seems like far too many cheaters will pass through the system.
I doubt most legal scholars would quantify beyond a reasonable doubt as 1:100 million, and that standard is used to potentially put someone in jail. Meanwhile, the NBME’s punishment is to retake the exam.
I think the problem was how much exam info they were sharing and how unfairly they were creating a database of the exact exam material (very, very silly and careless). First Aid, for example, I was told, was created in the same way (students who took the exam shared the topica with the authors). And I am sure FA is reviewed every year reflecting the change in questions (also based on new NBME forms that are already available for practice). Students went too far. I am absolutely certain that this happens even more in other bigger countries. Nepal was made a scapegoat. Anyone found to have had any unfair advantage needs to unfortunately be penalised.
@@karmak8006Have you read any copy of first aid in the last 10 years? Comparing first aid to sharing exact questions is comical. First aid is probably 1000 pages covering extensively small details over vast medical topics while the recall question bank had what 1000 exact test questions.
More countries are being investigated. My understanding was a student in Pakistan had scores invalidated. Is that not true?
Well, cheating is too harsh a word. It seems the USMLE questions were repetitive and not innovative. People around the world refer past questions to prepare for the exam. Telegraph group or not, but the USMLE questions lacked innovative approach and relied on past questions to conduct the exams. Let me tell you, these doctors, mostly from Institute of Medicine (IoM) prepare almost a decade of their time, from high school till they graduate, studying and praticing almost 17-18 hours a day.
@@TimeTraveller390Ah yes, it is not the invalidated test takers fault, it is the NBME’s fault for making the test too easy to cheat. So did the doctors from the institute of medicine only study stolen questions? We will find out soon enough when these students have to retake the exam. If they even have the guts to do so.
Coming from a person who did schooling, high school, and bachelor's from Nepal, this is actually what we are encouraged to do by our teachers. For our 10th-grade examination, for instance, it is a norm to buy a book that has all the previous year's examination questions and, if one practices just from that book a score of 80% or above is pretty much guaranteed.
Okay but you read the test taking agreement and exam rules right? So your institutions encourage you to cheat. Sad.
And that's the scene for every exam in the world.
wait, I thought they had cheated, but if they just studied based on a large question bank made with recent USMLE tests, then how is that different from just studying? does the USMLE not change its questions every year? That sounds kinda lazy...
sorry if I misunderstood something, I am not from the US or Nepal, I am just curious about the case, and that detail is something that left me a bit confused
It's because the questions were live, active questions and weren't released by NBME. UWorld hires physicians to generate their own questions. Resources like First Aid are about general high-yield concepts. Telling others about active, non-released questions so they can improve their score is cheating. There's no point in a test where you can just memorize all the exact questions and correct answers.
They can't change the questions every year because it's harder to generate good questions with good stats, especially in the clinical vignette form, than it sounds. The question has to be read more or less the same way by every student and have four reasonable but distinctly incorrect distractor answers (harder than it sounds). Out of the 280 questions on Step 2, a bunch of them are tester questions that don't count towards your score. It's time-consuming and expensive.
Even if you don't think what they did is cheating, when you sit the exam, you sign a statement before you start that's VERY clear they'll invalidate your score and pursue legal action if you reproduce the active exam questions for others (I remember this, I just sat for Step 2 a couple of weeks ago). So they were told the consequences and they did it anyway.
@@shinyumbreon696 I see thanks for the information, all the entrance exams from my country just change their questions every year (including the residency entrance exams) so it's pretty normal to study from questions from previous years, so I wasn't familiar with the concept, thanks for the info :)
and to be honest still think not changing the questions seems pretty lazy considering a lot of other countries do it and a quick Google search shows it costs a pretty penny to take these tests (some guy on Quora said it costs 1,105 dollars to take step one)
but if they had established rules against what those students did, then what they did was against the rules, even if it looked strange from the outside, they should have followed those rules to avoid any trouble
it's like what the local saying from my country says: Those with power will give the orders. and those with sanity will obey them.
The nbme is way too lenient about this. Honestly should just ban these cheaters from ever taking the test again.
Because the nbme knows that they are at fault as well and are trying the best to keep it under wraps
This is actually an NBME fault
@@flaminmongrel6955both are at fault. Cuz, there are always few bad apples trying to cheat their way onto the the top. So basically NBME should not try to give them a chance n those cheaters shouldn't have done that in the first place
Exactly, I'm shocked they could even sit for the exam again. There's nothing to prevent them from rememorizing the questions and just intentionally getting a couple wrong this time around so they get a more normal score.
@@ArwenisawesomeThey may prep an exam with questions that 100% have not been leaked (never been used before) so prior cheating wouldn't work again and if they really knew their stuff they could pass and do well.
I read that some folks paid up to 1-2K for these questions🧐 for this much, you can actually buy a course w/Q bank, maybe even some tutoring hours, actually study & pass. Especially Step 2 and 3. If you have gone through med school /early residency and you can’t pass the clinically oriented Steps🤔 … you really do need remediation.
i dont think it's about passing. the astronimical difference between a "passing" step 2 score and a 280 is well worth spending even up to 10k. (im not condoning cheating by any means)
"Why study when they can get 100% by memorizing answers for 2K?" Uworld for step 1 costs about $550 per year, for 2 years it's above 1K (only questions, no tutoring) and you will not get a repeat question on the real deal (Step 2/3 are not pass/fail). Average U.S medical school costs about 70K per year, I know this because I am a U.S medical student. (I absolutely want these cheaters to get caught, and get punish to full extent, because at the end of the day they are harming the patients).
I love this kind of video. Thanks for the timely and in-depth breakdown of it all
this is infuriating and such a disservice to both patients and IMGs who, you know, actually work their butt off for their achievements
As someone studying for step 1, been struggling and have multiple people fail. This is heart breaking
Why heartbreaking?
@@wanderlust1334 it’s heartbreaking because I have seen my friends take this test, proceed to fail. The fact multiple countries were incriminated in this means the passing minimum would have been raised and would hurt the honest students who didn’t cheat. Even if my friends that failed pass the test on the next try, they will be barred from many residents and thus many specialities as a result of being honest and hard working
@@its9333I feel you I failed STEP 1 first time but working my butt off to crush STEP 2 and was encouraged by a close friend of mine who is a year ahead (I did a gap year) and they matched into a competitive specialty after failing STEP 1 the first time! It's still possible and failures don't define our entire future 👍
@@LilJbm1 man that’s beautiful, I wish the best for you
Great breakdown. The reality of the situation is that if you take a test and share answers with a friend who hasn't taken it yet, it's cheating. What people also have to realize is that when you take STEP and leave the test center, you are required to sign a document stating "I will not share questions/answers with other people". Yes, people are going to talk about the questions they got that stumped them but no one is making a large booklet of questions and sharing that. What people also need to realize is that agreement analysis looks at the questions you get right in addition to the questions you get wrong. When a collective of people are getting the exact same questions right AND wrong, something fishy is going on.
On questions: People need to realize that creating questions is harder than you think, that's why the USMLE will reuse some while implementing new ones every year. That's why in the USMLE exams, there are "experimental" questions that get tossed out. Fun fact, almost 1/4 of your exam questions are thrown out.
What is interesting is that we are discussing about medical knowledge gaps, perhaps boosting a score from a 220 to a 240, and the impact this has with treating patients, while we have NPs in the US establishing independent practices. I am not saying one is less concerning than the other, I am just laying out how messed up our system has turned itself into.
Dude ultimately scores matter believe it or not. That's one of the differentiating factors. So desperate people take desperate measures like this. It's disgusting
US med student here who recently took STEP 1 (hopefully passed lol) - I was also recently diagnosed with ADHD while in med school and now I'm wondering if there is negative stigma with me taking adderall. I know it is legally prescribed to me, but somehow it feels like people still think I'm taking a "shortcut" because I am medicated. When in reality I still had to sit there for 14 hours a day studying just like everyone else until I felt too tired to eat or sleep. Medication only helps me stay focused, but it does not solve all the other executive dysfunction issues that ADHD comes with. It was still a struggle and a challenge every day to stay organized and on track with studying. More and more people are getting diagnosed with ADHD every day (whether due to overdiagnosis or underdiagnosis), and I really hope there's less stigma and misinformation regarding stimulant usage moving forward. I'm glad Dr. Jubbal brought that up.
I still remember studying for 14-15 hours a day before a month of the Step 1 and Step2 CK exam, going through multiple revisions. After coming to know about this, this is really very heartbreaking. They should be banned from ever taking the Exams again.
How can you blame student sir.
There is nothing very special about the USMLE exam they are based on the same textbook that are being followed in Nepal too and beside group discussion and past year recall question practice is part of clearing your concept.
@@pravuyaduwansi956 If there is nothing special about USMLE then there is nothing special about Neet Pg as well. It's not about ability of test taking of student, it's about the moral integrity of a student who is going to become a doctor to serve his/her patients. This is the reason why so my IMGs get 260s and 270s and don't get matched into Residency in the US.
Bro what you did for just a month to pass usmle we studied like that for year that also to just get a seat to study mbbs
there might be few cheaters which are surely in every other countries as well
what marks you are considering as suspicious is really not sO uncommon for us to secure considering how our education system has trained us
@@Shreyash_bhandari Dude I am too from India coming from Calcutta and I also came through the same system which you are talking about. I too have seen it all- saw both the system.
@pravuyaduwansi956 You don't know what you are talking about. This isn't about getting a question right by pattern recognition. These people haven't learned to think critically like a doctor and analyze the complexities of the case. They memorized a test question bank which can be done in a day or two. That doesn't mean you know shit.
13:40 exactly. To say that they are cheating just because they have high score is a bad mindset.
I feel that this video is a little biased. While I am definitely against all people who used recalls and cheated in other ways, I feel that that this video somehow targets all IMGs by saying that all of them will be affected. This doesn't make sense as there IMGs who took their exams in the U.S with U.S medical students. Therefore, it is not fair to include all of them in one bracket. Not to forget to mention that applications such as Telegram are also available in the U.S. It doesn't make sense that U.S medical students are not using them too. Investigation should also include U.S medical students and should affect them equally. Yes, cheating might be more rampant in Nepal, but that doesn't exclude other countries. Also, there are many top programs (not just community hospitals or family medicine programs) that rely on IMGs. In fact, many of the chairs at top institutions are IMGs. Instead of targeting specific countries and all IMGs, I believe that you have mentioned a very valuable solution, which is changing question pool regularly.
For the thousands of dollars I pay in order to take the step exams, they should more highly randomize the questions OR make more.
How long can someone with high passing score gotten from cheating pretend to be a knowledgeable student? They’re gonna be called out immediately
I had one of these people in my rotations who we suspected was a cheater because they absolutely had zero understanding of the most basic concepts.
Can someone with a 240+ step 1 not know a single side effect of ace inhibitors? It’s not possible!
Yea the cheating isnt beneficial long term!!
Facts. That does not add up
Every med student knows cough, angioedema, hyperkalemia
Injustice to all those students who do not cheat . Strict disciplinary action should be taken against the cheaters.
If these leaked exam questions are available online then that means anyone can access them even the students in the USA. Is there going to investigation for US students as well? Since the standard deviation of the test is based on the performance of US students, if their scores get invalidated, will the scores of other students change ?
I don't think there was a leak just that they found the repeated questions and noticed the pattern.
some students from Nepal reported the cheating to NBME and NBME got hold of screenshots of questions that they were using. Thats when this whole thing started. I remember reading NBME statement on this idk where@@flaminmongrel6955
They're on video taking pictures of the test ... I doubt they have them readily available online. Don't drag the US students into this mess.
@@kbb92 recent exam questions aka recalls are readily available online and anyone can access them no matter if they are in the US. So everyone should be investigated.
@@Dr.stoic007 They had the exact exam questions from the test; with video proof of them taking pictures of the exam questions. They violated a legally binding contract that states not to share any information from the exam. You can't twist that around to make it ok, when it clearly states not to and you agree to it. You can't do any of that in any of that in US testing centers. You are thoroughly searched each time you break. I don't understand why IMGs are so bitter toward US students. Working hard and going to a medical school and matching into a residency in your own country is some how an injustice to IMGs? US students don't even get that long to study for the exams. Months - weeks of dedicated time. If anything you have way longer to study. US students are not attacking IMGs, but for some reason you feel like the fact that US medical students simply exist is wrong and somehow they've wronged you?
I used to proctor for advanced Anatomy courses in college. My professor who made the exam warned me to make sure I had meticulous notes about what structures we highlighted because students would come into the lab and switch the flags so the other pre-meds would get the wrong answer and they would look better.
Whaaa
I thought the whole point of having to do these exams through rigid computer, software, and the reason why it takes so long for scores to come back, was because they were monitoring for these kinds of things. How the hell was this allowed to go on for so long?
This is so weird. I completed my high school in Nepal and i am currently doing my BSN in US. There is no comparison of the education system of nepal and USA. You cannot compare them. I wonder how a US student would react to , if he gets put in one of the medical classes of nepal. It is tough and rigorous. Nothing like what you teach in US. Honestly what they are teaching in college, i already studied in my 8th grade. So coming and questioning the capabilities of a medical doctor from nepal is dumb. They have passed more tougher exams that USMLE itself. I doubt if you ever saw the cutoff of those entrance exams. And cheating part ,while i was giving my hesi i was recommended to use nurse hub by my own professor, which i did. Turns out all the questions I did in exam were mentioned in nurse hub somewhere. I made a perfect score. And nursehub is not some random illegal app. It is the most widely used app ,by nursing students in US. How did they got the questions word to word? It is not just in nursing school. I am 100% sure they might have similar big brand app to study for NCLEX and USMLE. Everything works like this in US. You either get quizlet with same question online or you purchase premiums and get through it. From driving license test to Starbucks interview , nursing to medical school.
Those Nepali cheaters got what was coming to them for sure
True
A BSN is not the same as a US Medical degree, and they literally had security footage of someone taking pictures of the actual exam.
Womp womp. If they went through tests that were much more difficult back in their own country, what prevented them from passing USMLE without making the same mistakes on the same questions like some sort of a hive mind, or getting the answers wrong on questions that were not specifically leaked, when they were supposed to study that topic thoroughly in the first place? Go ahead and deny the statistics, lol. Those cheating nepalis are just plain lazy and dishonest, that’s it. It’s a disgrace to even let them retake the test.
It’s known for years in countries like India, Syria ,Iran , Russia that they have closed groups of many med students who study together then after taking exam they come out of exam and share the questions with non takers . Some doctors non are board certified doctors and they are practicing in the U.S.
with successful business
I have never agreed that move and never been part of those groups so I got stuck in the USMLE process for years .
What about Jordan pakistan?
I really don't see the problem here, just don't repeat the questions. You cannot stop it, this is what we do here domestically in medical exams. Because you cannot really stop people from talking about stuff and neither can you keep cancelling scores based of perceived suspicion of being "too good".
The best combo of youtubers.
Cheating shouldn’t be allowed but, I don’t think the Nepalese past students accumulated the past questions. Those questions were most likely accumulated in other countries then, made available for purchase which Nepalese students got their hands then, shared among friends since Nepal is close knit society. In order to prevent this NMBE needs to come up with other ways to conduct the test or, different set of questions every time and, the test centers should be strictly monitored.
Wonderful Video Kev…..❤❤
Clarified all the gossips and speculations which was on air 👍🏻👍🏻
If WhatsApp or telegram groups discussion are cheating then even past doctors who matched this should be scrutinised ! This must be going on for years ! Why only cancel scores for this current match ? Then what about those students who already matched ?
Just give different questions..😊😊
Maybe i am wired that way cause I come from Nepal , but recall of recycled question in itself doesn't cross any boundary for me.
In short, NBME repeats its past questions in its exams repeatedly, making it relatively easy to cheat. Therefore, NBME should modify their Qbank accordingly.
Not sure how to say this but memorizing the questions is a part of the process.(at least in our place, not in Nepal btw)
Everyone knows it (even the administrators who make the questions) and the students recollect all the past questions then study around the same topic. In this method it is considered cheating if you are caught writing the question or actively noting it down anywhere near the premises. However, I think the difference in US exam and in our system is the questions never get repeated. Do 1000 past questions, chances are only 1 might be repeated. So, yes the Nepal students have cheated according to this but I guess more like they found a loophole and took the e advantage. Do NOt repeat the exact questions 🤷♀️
I’m not kidding we do so many past practice questions and we know we will get like questions around RS or CVS from valvular heart disease or COpd but each time the questions are testing on something different. It’s is rarely repeated.
Also the cheating is with written papers so, how are they tested for clinical. In clinical even if you get the same patients there is no way you’ll be assessed the same as your colleagues. So, doesn’t USMLE have a way to eliminate those by equally assessing the clinical performance and written papers.
For those who are unclear in my uni we divide the number of question a student should remember and then later recall the questions and the next batch of students study them. 🤷🏻♀️
that is actually so cute! i love that @@women.unfiltered
You have the best common sense. Yeah of course, in the rest of the world, they practice question banks, past test questions ... because you process better and remember better when you practice questions in stead of just reading the texts... It is the examiner who was supposed to use different wording each time to ask questions, not repeating the exact same damn questions. Besides USMLE is long exam with physical assessment tests involved...there is no way you can pass it without going through medical school. Hence the docs from Nepal may have cheated by USMLE definition, but the problem was just how ill prepared USMLE was.... It is good that now USMLE caught it... but instead of correcting the docs from Nepal, they shall change now onwards their question each time...... It is funny that Nepal got caught, otherwise half of the world was doing the same thing to pass that USMLE :)
@@dineshlama7164 yeah ikr lol
Honestly, it's very sad cheating and stimulants have become so prevalent. Most of my friends are pre-med and I can't name one that hasn't cheated. In the moment I didn't think much of it because of how prevalent it is but now that I am about to graduate and they are about to go to med school I understand the concern. Once you have a habit of cheating you don't just stop so we are going to have a generation of doctors that cut corners. That is a scary and very sobering thought so hopefully, this investigation grows and develops methods to curb cheating within med school boards.
The whole "Oh you must have used stimulants if you're doing well" thing sounds like projection to me. THEY used stimulants to do well, or aren't doing well without stimulants, therefore everyone who did well must be using stimulants.
@@shinyumbreon696 I don’t think reading comprehension is your forte. I said this because Ik what the people do. You can do well without stimulants but Ik they are using them.
@@christian-gu5oq I'm sure they are. I'm agreeing with you, and saying that I think the "If you're doing well you must be using stimulants" argument Kevin talked about in the video stems from the fact that they're so common among high achievers like you say.
I heard that US students use some form of recalls as well?
Who got hurt the most? Sadly patients. Personally worked with some of these IMGs and not going to lie, I’m genuinely concerned for some of their clinical knowledge, mannerism and ethics while taking care of the patients. That is not exclusive to only IMGs, US DOs and MDs too, but the percentage and likelihood with IMGs is scary.
Not surprised tbh, SAT exams used to get leaked every session. America seems to be popular with this stuff.
Wait, that's cheating? Memorizing the answers to reoccurring questions is so standard where I come from.
Yes it is!! let's say you have an exam tomorrow that contains 50 questions and your friend who took that exam last semester gave you (only you and no one else in the class) 100 questions (with answers) and told you those questions will be same. I promise you, you will not touch any book or lectures and memorize all the answers. I also promise you, you will get all those questions right (if you have a good memory) whereas your other classmates will miss questions. Now tell me, is it cheating or is it normal where are you from? But at the time, your classmates will have better knowledge about the subject than you.
@@alizain9638it might be cheating , but I can assure you that lot of them are doing these recall question based studying especially in the eastern part of the world , but that’s the norm here .
@@Sameer-rj3kc hold on, did you just say it's cheating and then said it's normal to cheat in eastern part of the world? I'm not surprised that education system in east is pretty bad that they have to start cheating on USMLE. I don't know about you, I would not touch a book or lecture if I already know the questions and get 100% on every exam without going to class or opening any book/lecture. It's not studying when you're memorizing answers. My 15 year old brother can memorize questions/answers if someone gave him those questions and probably get 100% on USMLE. I'm just saying, it's not fair for honest nepali med students who are actually studying and not cheating. I'm just a regular med student in U.S. and I don't think I will recommend anyone to go to a Nepali/Indian/Pakistani doctor after this cheating scandal. And nobody can say it's "not cheating" because it is cheating. Math does not lie.
@@alizain9638 oh bro you are drawing lot of conclusions there , when it comes to exams in India it’s one of the hardest as well , but we do recall question in the sense that these questions don’t get repeated here , topics do , so memorising won’t help the case , do you get it ? Also the solution to the board is change the questions is it too difficult for them to do that ?
@@Sameer-rj3kc I completely agree with you and Medical examination should be hard because at the end of the day you have to treat actual patients. But if someone in your class does not do thousands of questions and have exact copy of exams that will show up on the exam, that's cheating and that person should be punished. USMLE does change questions frequently, and there is whole systematic approach on how they change the questions. Google it. Or watch video of Sheriff of Sodium on how USMLE change their questions and how often they change it. This means these countries have their own cheating system in place and I am glad USMLE is catching these cheaters. There's a difference in Q-bank and actual exam questions.
I am from Nepal. And knowing the culture here, cheating is not surprising
So is past paper practice illegal with these exams specifically?
How come there isnt some sort of practical for IMGs? Im a foreign vet and the ECFVG requires the CPE which is a 3 day practical exam testing you in 5 things - small animal internal medicine, large animal internal medicine, surgery (spay), anesthesia (you are supposed to be the anesthesiologist) and pathology (necropsy). Wouldn't some sort of variation of that be reasonable for IMGs?
Veterinarians don't really require residency do they? Its's optional. That's more like PAs...they just go work after school
Well, cheating is too harsh a word. It seems the USMLE questions were repetitive and not innovative. People around the world refer past questions to prepare for the exam. Telegraph group or not, but the USMLE questions lacked innovative approach and relied on past questions to conduct the exams. Let me tell you, these doctors, mostly from Institute of Medicine (IoM) prepare almost a decade of their time, from high school till they graduate, studying and praticing almost 17-18 hours a day.
Bro just accept they were cheating. And not all doctors are in iom only.
@@mindtube7726 I donot believe on other false accusations until I see it with my eyes. In todays world most of the time propagandas happens due to peoples tactics.
@@TimeTraveller390 lol they're literally on video ...cheating.
@@kbb92 then publish it. It would be more clear.
Something to consider with regards to similar answers, is that some schools train you to write and think the same way. There is a "regurgitate" culture in these countries and even where I'm from in the Caribbean. So you're practicing questions and you're writing what a teacher has trained you to write which would get all marks. If that makes sense.
Then why is that only occurring in Nepal but not other countries?
@@jayanttotlani263
Pretty sure it's happening in other countries like India, Pakistan and many other countries. It is just that Nepalese doctors were caught coz they were boasting the score on the Social media.
@@jayanttotlani263 It happens everywhere but in India it is different, we here the students are taught thoroughly at least for medical examinations because questions rarely repeat but they still teach us what questions were presented. They pay certain students to come describe questions right after they come from exams then use them as a way to teach students about what to expect. But I can assure you most Indian students who clear Indian exams would be able to crack USMLE because most people I know who cracked and failed at domestic tests described the USMLE format and questions as comparatively very easy.
Just say you do not understand math.
@@flaminmongrel6955Problem is that is all BS excuses. Terms you agree to when you take the exam include NOT discussing any question or content on the exam. This approach requires you to break agreement and be dishonest so you would be a moral failure not deserving to be a physician.
Nepal is nothing compared to what is happening in India. 🙄
Are you talking step xams
Or in general?
So how exactly is India cheating more than Nepal? Are they bribing testing center officials? I have Indian-American friends who have alluded to similar things happening in India. Are recall question banks more extensive there, but the distribution is only in person with no paper trail? Please tell.
Nepalese cheaters ,cope with it. You guys got caught now stop playing victim card. Indian doctors are the one of the best.period!
Usmle is easy for Indian docs because thier medical school is more hard
Send the cheaters home, ban them from ever taking the test again
This is incredibly racist.
@@paperringpinkI’m Indian and the above comment is not racist at all. The comment talks about stopping cheaters from taking the test again. It would be same for IMGs, as well as for US grads. You don’t want your PCP to be someone who pass the medical licensing exam by cheating!
@@paperringpink why?
Which are usually white people. This can't be racist because they are the majority and not marginalized.
A score does dictate the type of doctor one can be....it is just a score. Test questions are way more complex than what real patients are. This is crazy to do it by the nbme!
7:42 I don't think it is wrong or they were cheating. The collective and combined way of learning and taking references from past questions. All the students do that everywhere. Isn't it time for the test takers to make new and innovative questions every time, instead of repeating the same questions or patterns. These doctors, to reach there and take the test have spent studying more than 12 hrs/ day for nearly a decade, so they are the most smartest people around. I think blaming the students but ignoring their lack of creativity in setting questions is not fair. If the board can prove that their question papers were leaked, only then they can accuse? 😢. I have seen couple of such videos, It has blamed the students and that is quite sad and unfair. 😢
Completely agree with this
Sorry but it’s cheating. When you take the exam you sign something saying that you won’t discuss answers/questions. From the statistical analysis, they found that people were getting the same answers right as well as wrong suggesting that they aren’t performing from their knowledge base but rather due to nefarious reasons.
The number of people actively admitting to cheating in this comment section is astonishing. YES, recalling active exam questions and sharing them with people who haven't taken the test IS CHEATING. Using those questions obtained from other students is cheating. It doesn't matter if you rationalize it as using your gigabrain memory to "beat" the test; you are giving/receiving an advantage over others based on inside knowledge. It also doesn't matter if YOU don't think it's cheating because before you sit the exam, there's a big freaking disclaimer at the beginning that you have to click "agree" on that saying NBME considers the reproduction and distribution of exact questions to be cheating and they will invalidate your score. These students were clearly told the consequences of what they did and did it anyway. If they didn't take those warnings seriously, that's on them.
Many people here also don't seem to understand the amount of time, money, and effort it takes to generate NBME-style questions. Questions aren't just written and slapped onto the test, they're also edited by multiple people and focus-tested on examinees to make sure only good ones get through. You ever taken a test where questions have to be thrown out because they were confusing or one of the "wrong" answers choices could be reasonably argued as true? NBME isn't immune to that and bad questions can't be on board exams. If you take Step 2, dozens of those questions are testers that don't count towards your score, and they're only added to the question bank if they perform well enough. They can't write thousands of untested new questions every year to fill multiple versions of a 280-question test, and recycling questions isn't just "laziness" on the NBME's part. That's not how any of this works.
I know I sound like an NBME shill, and I'm not. I'm a med student; I get frustrated with them too. Studying for Step exams sucks. The amount of power they have over your entire career sucks. But given what they did, and how clearly they were warned, I think NBME is responding appropriately to what happened.
Isn’t it already questionable when these graduates that barely speak English are passing an exam that is one of the hardest exams in the world and each question is paragraphs long with extensive vocabulary. How do program directors not question this? Most incredulous is that they will be practicing medicine and I heard many of these students have not even completed medical schools and going straight to taking the exams.
Nepal, India, Pakistan and Jordan as mentioned in the videos are all former British colonies with a huge no of fluent English speakers. Only 10% of Indians speak english but it is more than the native English speakers in the US . Plus all the medical training in these countries is done in English. Please don't be so ignorant
this is a really disheartening situation imo. some bad apples should not be spoiling it for the bunch (the bunch being all FMGs). it reminds me of something I learned from Freakonomics where they discussed cheating and said how anyone can cheat if the stakes are high enough. this is esp true for FMGs who are desperate to be a doctor in a high income country like the US so they can build a better life. I think a good way to solve the problem is to make Step 1 pass/fail for them if it isn't already. also I think that investigation of the current STEP resources available to students at their home countries/med schools need to be done to ensure that they have equitable access. imo, in order to prevent future cheating, there has to be serious attempts taken to make admissions for FMGs to be more holistic vs so heavily dependent on test scores.
Hii, have you also paid attention to scores from lebanon, syria, egypt. I saw many students score more than 260 on step scores from there too on my linkedin. May be they too have these types of behaviour too of circulating old and recent past questions.
Thank you Kevin
I think taking all step exams for international physicians in the US exam centers would be a great idea
Some of us don't have enough money for that
@@hrughoo3456 same here... Fee waiver for international physicians would be also a good solution if we choose to pass the exam in the US
@@dr.soufianeabdouh2991 I'm Indian and most doctors and program directors are indians. We literally can't do anything this is going to affect us life long. I just know that Indian doctor are very brilliant and since years we are successful in US health care system . Money would be a major issue
Im a third year nepali med student in the US. This is just sad to see and very disappointing. I'm honestly scared to apply to residency even as a US citizen after these cheaters have tainted Nepal's name and reputation
Yup, good luck
your actual clinical performance speaks louder than ur exam score ! At least ur in state , you have a chance to prove yourself!
Cheating was incredibly prevalent when I finished up college in 2016. People were abusing Adderall all the time and cheating on exams and coursework. The outcome is more important than the process.....
I only feel bad for the ones who cleared it with genuine work.
Studied 12 hrs for 5 months in step 2 and still scored 230+ ..
This just causes distrust between the public and healthcare. This is disappointing and sad
Yep
This would be more like practicing and practicing rather than calling cheating. Maybe the fancy country accused them cheating because they were not being able to provide enough seats for their domestic students so they targeted specifically smart peoples majority in from group and accused them of cheating. If they are cheating they should provide the cctv video something. Some peoples are so hardworking I have seen they read under one candle whole night and day. I didnot saw this cheating at all. Looks like just a accusation.
Ya they studied the stolen questions under candle light all day. That is cheating. The USMLE has specific rules regarding sharing questions from the exam. They cheated by knowing what the questions were going to be beforehand. Video recordings would not prove or disprove that accusation.
they have video
While this is obviously a massive breach, if the practicing physicians and residents are good doctors i dont find as much of an issue with this. The standardized exams are a really poor predictor of how good of a doctor someone will be, so im not as worried about whether patients are at risk here. Obviously its quite unfair to the rest of students who honestly take the exams but im not as hardlined on this as others may be. Giving them the chance to take it again and pass honestly is completely fair to me
I guess so. There is a doctor shortage and the thing is that with these exams, they are not good predictors of test taking success.
Why not just ban all international testing at these shady test centers? If you want to practice medicine in America then you should test in America
100%
Step 3 is taken only in the US. Scores were invalidated for step 3 as well. It is not the test center, it is pooling the questions after the exam.
it doesnt really change anything, if someone memorized the answers
This would had been brilliant but also consider the financial burden on IMGs .
Can you use these to study if you plan to go through the med school outs in 7+ years?
I know many good, hardworking IMGs but sometimes I wonder about the ones who could barely speak/communicate in English but got very high scores on USMLE. Also, I recently had a conversation about USMLE, with an IMG from Nepal, who came to the US to apply for residency positions, and quickly realized that she had very limited knowledge of basic USMLE content but somehow passed both Step 1 and 2.
On adderall, when I look at a piece of blank paper my mind is filled with ideas. Without adderall all I see is a blank piece of paper.
So i was looking for a support group online hoping to find people to ask about their USMLE journey because unfortunately I do not know a lot of people who are on the same journey.. and I was shocked to have been included to multiple group chats with people offering help in cheating.. providing latest questions etc.. its crazyyy. I was so scared of getting involved that i left the group chats.. and yes its not just Nepal. I saw people from multiple countries there
Imagine the scores display instantly after the exam, so the proctors/any officials can gather the data talked about (time taken for answering questions, similarities in rights and wrongs, etc) with AI, and detect suspicious activity on the testing day itself.
If the data suggests a more than 50% likelihood of cheating amongst all test takers, then all scores in that center would be invalidated then and there. It's easier to isolate testing centers and ban them this way too. It also alleviates anxiety around waiting for 2 weeks or so for the results. The falsely accused can then appeal to NBME (time waiting on the appeal > time waiting for the score), re-take the test in another center, or do nothing.
The craziest thing would be to only have all the step exams available exclusively in the United States or Canada if they can't analyze data every year for each country where the test is available. But given that we have the efficiency of AI, it wouldn't take long to have a global analysis either.
95% of cheater’s scores fall in the confidence interval. As long as p
the bigger concern is the fact that these tests were originally designed for "passing" not identifying people for program eligibility and ranking. in an arms race, cheating will be more common.
No.
Prometric and their affiliates should be sued. Workers in prometric were bribed and allowed students to bring in phones to record on video their exam and use their phones during the exam to either search or make calls. Students were answering questions in 10 to 12 seconds per questions with 98% accuracy
It’s pretty common in GRE, tofel , GMAT, SAT exams not sure about USMLE
They need to do investigations thoroughly, the US included. This process is simply too gruesome for the cheaters to get away with it at the expense of the honest students and at the expense of patient safety.
In my opinion why is usmle recycling the questions…it’s almost as if students will recycle questions. Nepal and India I think the entirety of South Asia students use past question material to estimate the pattern of questions that can come in the future. It’s smart study. Usmle hates students who outsmart them apparently. And I understand that the exam is trying to test the understanding at the level that the exam is rather than the memory ability..but memory and knowledge is almost proportional imo…
You must have acquired sufficient knowledge by memorizing 1000 pages of material which is equivalent to reading and solving Uworld material. Why is called cheating? If these students answers are correct it means they know the subject by reading that full clinical material from recalled knowledge. Recollection of vast material is also talent and not cheating.
What? When I was 18 taking exam for University we were sold so many questions saying those questions were asked in the past and made it practice, very few or almost none came in my exam but same things happens in every competitive exam When the entire system does it, every other person does it you don't even think you were cheating. This scandal has shown me the other side of the argument.
Ive come across 2 that cant even communicate in english with pts but are in these tough programs
I don't think that says anything. I can easily read and understand languages I'm learning but speaking my mind goes blank. So reading and understanding can be a little different from speaking, but I would assume to sit for an exam that hard you should be well versed in the language.
Using stimulants really isn’t cheating on these exams. Ultimately, if you don’t have the knowledge or reasoning skills, you’re not gonna do well on them
i think its light cheating but yeah it doesnt affect their knowledge of concepts the way other cheating does and is not that big of a deal
well it is in this instance, 9 hours of an exam is very endurance driven even if you know the stuff. And using it as a means to gain advantage is. especially if they are banned substances
@@kobehans7376 Banned?
@@Agtsmirnoff IF 🐒
Get their license, sue them and send them home. These cheaters are harming patients. After wining in court, give that money to U.S students or make USMLE free to take in U.S.
How far back were the scores discredited? From 2023 back to 2020 ?
where can I find these screenshots from these whatssup group? Obv not about the answers
But still a lot of them matched this year.
I didn’t know Nbme repeat questions. In my life only 1 paper in med school had 3 questions repeated
Kevin I definitely agree with you that the NBME went way too easy on these people
Amazing, thanks
My hot take is that the US should be less inviting to IMGs. There’s plenty of bright students here that want to be doctors but can’t because of cutthroat (and sometimes arbitrary) admission standards, all of which stem from not having enough residency positions. It’s also very sad to see the brain drain in developing countries that need bright physicians. It’s hard tho because I get wanting to immigrate to the US to make a better life for yourself and your family, especially after all the brutally hard work you’ve put in to becoming a physician
i mean, i get what you're saying of course, but some of em literally live in places where it's dangerous for them and their families, and where there are no opportunities. should their talent really go to waste because of where they were born? it's a pretty sad situation imo, i think there should be something done so that more residency places are made available
IT’S NOT JUST NEPAL, INDIA OR PARKISTAN, EVEN HERE IN AMERICA A LOT OF STUDENTS CHEAT
Actually its normal to collect ,discuss and practice past questions in groups in sub continent .
My man, I know why they wondered about Adderall; your speaking speed is like 3x.
I had a patient who was accused of cheating on a nursing exam. For a variety of reasons, I don't believe she cheated, and the program was known for being very harsh on students. As a result, she got a 0 on the exam; as a result, she failed the course. As a result of that, she was suspended for a year; as a result of that, she was unable to transfer to another school. And as a result of all that? She was required to pay-back her loans for that year, and was unable to secure loans to continue even when re-admitted. She lived alone & her first-generation immigrant family never knew she'd had to leave school. Her life literally fell to pieces. I stopped hearing from her. I made efforts to contact her, but never did hear back, and to this day, I don't know what happened to her.
they should forever be banned from taking the exams again.
I'm not saying that what these students did is okay - a judge obviously ruled on this for a reason.
But I'm not sure I understand the difference between this, and going through practice exam papers? Those are often also just old exam questions, so why is that not considered cheating, if you remember the answers to those practice exams?
I am sure they would have done good in exams even if the questions of exams were flipped.
No need to guess. Let’s see when they retake!
A lot of people condemning these people, crying that it harms patients, yet I knew at least a quarter of my classmates to have cheated to various extents, or done other unethical things. Funny how students and residents think they’re perfect saints. Y’all need a long look in the mirror.
Before anybody @ me, I’m a perfectly average USMLE scorer. I gain nothing by defending these morons.
If you're not cheating you're not not trying hard enough. 😂😂. I feel sorry for Nepal med students who played it straight.
Also the question of doping is pretty much done. Back in med school only 10% of my class was on PEDs aka ritalin. Now it's 90% of most classes. You literally need it to be competitive. When you consider kids are taking drugs just to get into med school outright cheating is simply the next step
So what about all the test prep centers making money selling previous questions for the SAT and other American exams. Kaplan
Why the fuck they repeat the same questions? Of course, they created this whole mess by not being too innovative with their questions, but cheating is wrong!
Who has the link to the file
What about the people who studied really hard and used this practice questions? ❓
Studying hard and learning the material is much different than memorizing the exact phrasing of stolen questions.
You should be banned from ever taking the test again and never allowed to work in healthcare.
I worked my butt off in 3 phlebotomy school and passed and got certificates I didn’t get a chance to take my national exam but I was allowed to practice through supervision and now I am doing emt and working very hard and I was looking up study guides and materials to study for whatever chapter I am doing and I come across a bunch of here is the answeres to this quiz or when I had to get my ICS 100 NIMS from fema and Is. 700.b getting ready for the exam I did what I usually do find study material and there was here is the answers to the fema exam I was upset. Why would I do that cheating gets you no where! And people who cheat on medical exams will not know how to treat their patients! And other things known basic medical terminology and the equipment you will need to use to save lives and they cheated oh God help us please!!!
Is really practicing past question cheating
i mean we study past year questions before every exams that is our studying strategy
and now you consider that as cheating
It is when you're on video taking pictures of the test.
I can speak for pakistan, here the USMLE is strict as hell! Noone can cheat even if they dream about it
These people should be fucking monitored if they need to take the exam again. Like seriously. There is a doctor shortage. Also, test taking skills do not mean much in the long run if they want to become a physician. Reality is that I felt like I was cheating when my hair was undone, did not shower, and barely ate on time just to do well... it is all some memorize and regurgitation shit and not real learning. It is doable but not sustainable long term, in that short test taking period, it just all becomes an act.
The exam has gotten harder!!