In June, the NBOME’s Board of Directors will be making a decision regarding the role of the C3DO moving forward. In preparation for this, the NBOME has been actively eliciting stakeholder feedback on the C3DO, talking with representatives of UME and GME as well as licensing boards, students, and public safety organizations with the aim of gathering input from across the house of osteopathic medicine for the Board’s consideration.
The C3DO Advisory Panel met on May 14, followed by the Student Experience Panel on May 19. Both groups received an update on the C3DO and were asked for their feedback on the pilot program. The NBOME provided both panels with a series of options the NBOME Board of Directors will be considering and requested their insight: which option would they recommend and why? What concerns would they want the Board to consider? As with the C3DO Task Force, which had met in April, both groups provided thoughtful commentary.
The Liaison Committee also met in May. Although their meeting was geared towards the discussion of strategic planning for the NBOME in general, some committee members also shared their thoughts on C3DO, with organizations, including COCA, ASOMR, OPDA, and ACMGE, calling out C3DO as an opportunity for the profession.
The NBOME team has been hard at work developing the C3DO in partnership with participating COMs and has been encouraged by the degree of engagement from these varied groups.
Development of the C3DO began when the Special Commission for Osteopathic Medical Licensure Assessment found that assessment of fundamental osteopathic clinical skills to a national standard using standardized patients (SPs) remains important and tasked the NBOME with finding a way to create such an assessment in partnership with COMs. The Board of Directors is evaluating an assessment that, after three years of development and piloting in an iterative process, reflects the following model:
- Administered at COMs using common protocols and materials, common scoring, and a national panel of certified osteopathic physician examiners.
- Six patient encounters
- Assessment of:
- History building and physical examination skills, recorded by SPs
- Communication, professionalism, and interpersonal skills, observed and documented by SPs
- Osteopathic Manipulative Treatment, evaluated in three of six stations by a national pool of physician examiners
- Clinical decision making, a series of post-encounter questions asking students to think further about the case they just saw, including differential or leading diagnoses/problem lists, test ordering and interpretation, disposition, lifestyle recommendations, osteopathic principles, and others.
Currently, the osteopathic clinical skills requirement for COMLEX-USA is satisfied through a dean’s attestation of each DO graduate’s clinical skills competency, contributing to eligibility for Level 3. Some COM participants in C3DO are currently using it to inform that attestation. This attestation is required through the Class of 2027. The future of this requirement will also be a topic of discussion for the Board, with an announcement expected in July 2025.