Year 2 courses included the following pathology courses: cardiovascular, gastrointestinal, musculoskeletal, obstetric and gynecologic, pulmonary, renal, and neuropathology. The systems courses were cardiovascular, gastrointestinal, nervous, obstetrics-gynecology, renal, respiratory, and rheumatologic systems. Other specialty courses in year 2 included dermatology, endocrinology, family practice, hematology, immunology, pharmacology II, osteopathic principles II, pediatrics, psychiatry, surgery, and toxicology. When correlations between preadmission variables and individual year 2 grades were studied, the only significant correlations were between the biological MCAT subscore and cardiovascular pathology and between the verbal and physical MCAT subscores and pediatrics (P<.05).
Table 5 shows the correlations between individual year 2 course grades and COMLEX–USA Level 1 scores. All courses, except musculoskeletal pathology, family practice, and psychiatry, were significantly correlated with Level 1 (
P<.05). All year 2 course grades were used in a regression model to predict COMLEX–USA Level 1 performance. Pharmacology II and pediatrics grades were found to be predictors of COMLEX–USA Level 1 performance (
R2 = 0.730). When preadmission variables were added to the model, the predictive variables were pharmacology II, neuropathology, pulmonary pathology, and the physical and biological MCAT subscores. The
R2 for this model was 0.807.
When all year 1 and 2 course grades were used in a predictive model for COMLEX–USA Level 1, physiology, pharmacology II, and neuropathology were significant variables (
R2 = 0.771). When preadmission variables were added to the model, the significant predictors were pharmacology II, neuropathology, pulmonary pathology, and the verbal and physical MCAT subscores (
R2 = 0.820) (
Table 2).