ChatGPT Can Pass US Medical Licensing Exam: Study

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New Delhi: ChatGPT can score at or around the roughly 60 percent passing threshold for the United States Medical Licensing Exam (USMLE), with responses that make coherent, internal sense and contain frequent insights, according to a study by Tiffany Kung, Victor Tseng, and colleagues at AnsibleHealth that was published February 9, 2023, in the open-access journal PLOS Digital Health.

A large language model (LLM), or new artificial intelligence (AI) system, called ChatGPT is intended to produce writing that resembles that of a person by anticipating future word sequences. ChatGPT is unable to conduct online searches, unlike most chatbots. Instead, it produces text based on word relationships that are predicted by internal processes. ()

Kung and colleagues tested ChatGPT's performance on the USMLE, a highly standardized and regulated series of three exams (Steps 1, 2CK, and 3) required for medical licensure in the United States. ()

Taken by medical students and physicians-in-training, the USMLE assesses knowledge spanning most medical disciplines, ranging from biochemistry, to diagnostic reasoning, to bioethics. After screening to remove image-based questions, the authors tested the software on 350 of the 376 public questions available from the June 2022 USMLE release.

After indeterminate responses were removed, ChatGPT scored between 52.4 percent and 75.0 percent across the three USMLE exams. The passing threshold each year is approximately 60 percent.

ChatGPT also demonstrated 94.6 percent concordance across all its responses and produced at least one significant insight (something that was new, non-obvious, and clinically valid) for 88.9 percent of its responses.