Length of Clinical Clerkship Training and NBME Subject Exam Performance: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.

Authors

M Vaughan, C Colton

Published in

Medical science educator. Volume 36. Issue 3. Pages 1647-1654. Epub Mar 07, 2026.

Abstract

Clinical clerkships represent a core component of medical education, with the success of this training largely measured by student performance on the NBME subject examinations. This review examines the impact of clerkship length on student performance on the NBME subject examinations.
For this systematic review, primary literature was obtained from Pubmed, Google Scholar, PsychInfo, and Scopus databases.
Traditional (longer) length clerkships resulted in higher exam scores for IM (p < 1.0E-05) and Surgery (p < 1.0E-05). Shorter length was favored for the Psychiatry clerkship (p = 0.03). We found no statistically significant difference in exam scores for Pediatrics, OBGYN, Family Med, or Neurology.
The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s40670-026-02691-x.

PMID:
42438498
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 13 Jul 2026.

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