The number of osteopathic students choosing emergency medicine (EM) as a specialty is continuously increasing. However, EM remains a competitive specialty. Accordingly, in this article we guide osteopathic students interested in EM through the Comprehensive Osteopathic Medical Licensing Examination (COMLEX), the United States Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE), third- and fourth-year rotations, and the match process. Additionally, we provide tips on the process of applying to allopathic programs and we discuss the timeline of both the allopathic and osteopathic match. Finally, we discuss the effect of the Single Accreditation System and the Memorandum of Understanding, an agreement to merge the allopathic and osteopathic graduate medical education systems into a single graduate medical education accreditation system. This is expected to be completed as of July 1, 2020. Therefore, we elucidate the expectations for osteopathic applicants (particularly with regards to the USMLE and COMLEX examinations).
Keywords: COMLEX; EM; Memorandum of Understanding; USMLE; emergency medicine; match; osteopathic.
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