Certification

Standard ECFMG Certificate

ECFMG issues the Standard ECFMG Certificate to applicants who meet all of the examination requirements (medical science examination, English language proficiency test, and Clinical Skills Assessment), fulfill the medical education credential requirements, and clear their financial accounts with ECFMG.

ECFMG issued 5,429 Standard ECFMG Certificates in 2002. Exhibit 3 shows the number of certificates issued each year from 1966 through 2002.

Applicant Profile

Exhibit 4 shows the number of Standard ECFMG Certificates issued in 2002. Of the 5,429 Standard ECFMG Certificates issued in 2002, India and Dominica had the largest number of recipients based upon country of medical school; 1,180 (21.7%) of the recipients were graduates of Indian medical schools and 393 (7.2%) received their medical degrees in Dominica.

From 1969 through 1981, nationals from India had formed the largest group of certificate recipients when citizenship was considered. Beginning in 1982, citizens of the United States graduating from medical schools abroad received more certificates than citizens of India. However, in 1989 the trend reversed and continued through 1998. From 1989 through 1998, citizens of India were again the largest group of certificate recipients. In 1999, the trend again reversed, and more certificates were issued to citizens of the United States than to Indian citizens. This trend continued in 2002, when 1,427 (26.3%) certificates were issued to U.S. citizens and 1,139 (21.0%) were issued to Indian citizens.

U.S. Citizens Pursuing ECFMG Certification

There is much interest in U.S. citizens who receive their medical education abroad. The number of such students is not known. The number of U.S. citizens taking ECFMG examinations, however, increased from 685 in January of 1973 to 5,026 for the last one-day ECFMG Examination administered in February 1984. The number decreased to 2,534 for the first administration of the Foreign Medical Graduate Examination in the Medical Sciences (FMGEMS) in July 1984 and reached a maximum for FMGEMS of 3,580 in July 1986. The last administration of FMGEMS in July 1993 included 731 U.S. citizens. For the first administrations of USMLE Step 1 and Step 2 in 1992, there were 1,549 and 524 U.S. citizens, respectively, who took the ECFMG-administered examinations.

In 2002, ECFMG registered 4,186 U.S. citizens for Step 1. The number of U.S. citizens registered for Step 2 in 2002 was 2,520. U.S. citizens comprised 20.0 percent of the total Step 1/Step 2 registrants in 2002. The largest numbers of U.S. citizen Step 1 and Step 2 registrants were students/graduates of medical schools in Mexico (837), Dominica (821), Grenada (798), Netherlands Antilles (738), and the Dominican Republic (398).

Performance data for U.S. citizen international medical students and graduates taking USMLE Step 1 and Step 2 are provided in Exhibit 1.