1) She failed the same test in April.

2) The NBME already went out of their way to accommodate her. They are giving her twice the time to complete the test and a private testing room. Try taking a 9-hour intense exam with other people taking typing tests around you like the other 3000 of us did.

3) The USMLE is a STANDARDIZED test to assess a minimum competency to assure that you have enough base knowledge to practice medicine and not harm your patients. If you don’t pass, then the exam is doing what it was intended to. Preventing somebody without a core knowledge of medicine to practice medicine on people who’s lives depend on your knowledge.

4) This test can be taken anytime during your 3rd and 4th year of medical school. You schedule when you take the test. Students have 2 years to schedule it and fit it into their “mom” schedule. She chose to procrastinate until it left her in this predicament. Most students take it during the end of their 3rd year to avoid this exact problem. Failing and not being able to start a residency in July. Yes, most residency programs start in July, not November. Did MGH already accommodate her by pushing her start date back by 4 months?

So when the surgeon can’t get a pathology report on the margins of a cancer they are resecting and the patient dies on the table, who is going to be supporting her when her excuse is “I needed to breast feed at that moment, otherwise my engorged breast would hurt and I could get mastitis.”