National Board of Medical Examiners

The National Board of Medical Examiners (NBME), founded in 1915, is a United States examination board which sets state recognised examinations for medical students. The NBME is an independent, not-for-profit organization and is headquartered on and adjacent to the University City Science Center research campus in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. According to the board, its mission is to "protect the health of the public through state of the art assessment of health professionals." The board emphasizes that "while NBME's mission is centered on assessment of physicians, this mission encompasses the spectrum of health professionals along the continuum of education, training and practice and includes research in evaluation as well as development of assessment instruments".

The board rose in prominence in the years after World War II. Prior to the war, states administered their own exams, and operated agreements to license doctors passed by other state exams. After the war, states began to use the results of an NBME exam to decide whether to award a license. This system meant students would sit the same exam.

The United States Medical Licensing Examination or USMLE, introduced in 1992, is a multi-part professional exam sponsored by the Federation of State Medical Boards (FSMB) and the NBME, and must be passed before a Doctor of Medicine can obtain a license to practice medicine in the United States.