2025 Southern GEA/GSA/OSR Conference

• The United States Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE) program serves to administer a series of assessments longitudinally across medical education to ensure that future physicians meet baseline competency for independent clinical practice. Through the current system of USMLE integration within medical school education, passing Step 1 and 2 Clinical Knowledge (CK) exams is required for both application to residency programs and graduation from undergraduate medical education (UME). While the original intentions of such standardized exams were to establish benchmarks for medical knowledge and clinical competence, the current high-stakes system has diverged to the point that USMLE performance is now the single most defining factor utilized in residency consideration. Over-prioritization of USMLE exams by curriculum developers and program directors alike has heightened stress levels and intensified reliance on parallel curricula, where use of third-party resources far outweighs genuine engagement in formal medical school curriculum and education due to perceived inadequacy of classroom didactics in preparing students for board exams. For this reason,