David B Swanson, PhD joined the American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS) in 2015 as Vice President for Certification Standards and Programs. In that role, he coordinates the Committees that oversee the certification and recertification processes of ABMS Member Boards. Previously, Dr Swanson worked at the National Board of Medical Examiners (NBME) for 25 years, serving first as the Director of USMLE Step 1 and then as the Vice President of NBME’s Test Development unit; in the latter role, he worked broadly on development of medical licensure and certification examinations. Over his long career, he has co-authored and presented hundreds of papers on assessment of medical decision making with multiple-choice tests and clinical simulations; measurement of clinical and communication skills with real and standardized patients; patterns of performance on admissions, licensure, in-training and certification examinations; selection of medical students and residents, use of generalizability theory in design and analysis of performance-based tests; computer applications in testing in the health professions, and design of continuing certification assessments. He has conducted hundreds of assessment-related workshops at medical schools, specialty boards, and health professions conferences nationally and internationally. In 2011, he was awarded the Richard Farrow Gold Medal by the Association for the Study of Medical Education in the United Kingdom for contributions to medical education. He was named a Fellow of the American Educational Research Association (AERA) in 2014 and received the AERA Division I (Education in the Professions) Distinguished Career Award in 2018. He also holds honorary professorial appointments in the Departments of Medical Education at the University of Melbourne Medical School and the Queensland University Faculty of Medicine.
Over the years, he has also consulted with specialty boards, Royal Colleges, and other organizations, including the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges, the Australian Medical Council, the China National Medical Examination Center, the College of Family Physicians of Canada, the General Medical Council’s Professional and Linguistics Advisory Board, the Medical Council of Canada, the Ministry of Examinations of the Republic of China, the Singapore Ministry of Health, the Swiss Institute for Medical Education, and the Royal Colleges of General Practitioners, Radiologists, and Surgeons.
Publications related to OSCEs and the assessment of clinical skills include:
Stillman PL, Swanson DB, Smee S, Stillman A., Ebert T, Emmel V, Caslowitz J, Greene H, Hamolsky M, Hatem C, Levensen D, Levin R, Levinson G, Ley B, Morgan G, Parrino T, Robinson S, Willms J (1986) Assessing clinical skills of residents with standardized patients. Annals of Internal Medicine, 105(5), 761-771.
Stillman PL, Swanson DB (1987) Ensuring the clinical competence of medical school graduates through standardized patients. Archives of Internal Medicine, 147(6), 1049-1052.
Stillman PL, Regan M, Swanson DB (1987) A diagnostic fourth year performance assessment. Archives of Internal Medicine, 147(11), 1981-1985.
Swanson DB (1987) A measurement framework for performance based tests. In Hart I & Harden R (Eds.), Further Developments in Assessing Clinical Competence. Montreal: Can Heal Publications, 13-45.
Newble DI, Swanson DB (1988) Psychometric characteristics of the objective structured clinical examination. Medical Education, 22, 325-334.
van der Vleuten CP, van Luyk S, Swanson DB (1988) Reliability (generalizability) of the Maastricht skills test. Proceedings of the Twenty-seventh Annual Conference on Research in Medical Education, 228-233.
van der Vleuten CP, van Luyk, S, van Ballegooijen A, Swanson DB (1989) Training and experience of examiners. Medical Education, 23, 290-296.
Swanson DB, Norcini JJ (1989) Factors influencing reproducibility of tests using standardized patients. Teaching and Learning in Medicine, 1, 158-166.
van der Vleuten CP, Swanson DB (1990) Five strategies for reducing resource requirements for tests involving standardized patients. Teaching and Assessing Clinical Competence. Bender, W., Hiemstra R, Scherpbier A, Zwierstra R (Eds), BoekWerk, Groningen, The Netherlands, 344-351.
Swanson DB, Stillman PL (1990) Use of standardized patients for teaching and assessing clinical skills. Evaluation and the Health Professions, 13, 79-103.
Stillman PL, Regan M, Swanson DB, Case SM, McCahan J, Smith S, Willms J, Feinblatt J, Nelson D (1990) An assessment of the clinical skills of New England fourth year medical students. Academic Medicine, 65(5), 320-326.
van der Vleuten CP, Swanson DB (1990) Assessment of clinical skills with standardized patients: State-of-the-art. Teaching and Learning in Medicine 2, 58-76.
Stillman PL, Swanson DB, Regan M, et al (1991) Assessment of clinical skills of residents utilizing standardized patients. Annals of Internal Medicine, 114, 393-401.
Swanson DB (1992) Criterion-referencing performance-based exams. In Hart, I, Harden, R, Des Marchais, J (Eds), Current Developments in Assessing Clinical Competence. Can Heal Publications, Montreal, 54-65.
Stillman PL, Regan M, Swanson DB, Haley H (1992) Gender differences in clinical skills as measured by an examination using standardized patients. In Hart I, Harden R, Des Marchais J (Eds), Current Developments in Assessing Clinical Competence. Can Heal Publications, Montreal, 390-395.
Stillman PL, Regan M, Swanson DB, Haley H (1992) Sequence effect in a multiple station examination using standardized patients. In Hart I, Harden R, Des Marchais J (Eds), Current Developments in Assessing Clinical Competence. Can Heal Publications, Montreal, 396-404.
van der Vleuten CP, Swanson DB (1992) Reliability issues in objective structured clinical examination. In Hart I, Harden R, Des Marchais J (eds). Current Developments in Assessing Clinical Competence. Can Heal Publications, Montreal, 66-77.
Reznick R, Kopelow M, Levasseur L, Baumber J, Chalmers A, Lacomb G, Paley P, Tamblyn R, Smee S, Swanson DB, Mendez J, Cohen R (1992) The Q5 project of the Medical Council of Canada. In Hart I, Harden R, Des Marchais J (Eds), Current Developments in Assessing Clinical Competence. Can Heal Publications, Montreal, 24-26. Reznick R, Baumber J, Cohen R, Chalmers A, Swanson DB, Lacomb G, Dufresene L, Smee, S, Rothman A, Tamblyn R, Mendez J, Poldre P, Kopelow M, Patey P, Bourdrequ D, Levasseur L, Berard M (1992) An objective structured clinical examination for licensure. In Harden R, Hart I, Mulholland, H (Eds), Approaches to the Assessment of Clinical Competence: Part 1. Page Brothers, Norwich, England, 71-77.
Swanson DB, Clauser BE, Case SM (1999) Clinical skills assessment with standardized patients in high-stakes tests: A framework for thinking about score precision, equating, and security. Advances in Health Sciences Education. 4: 67-106.
Hawkins RE, Swanson DB, Dillon GF, Clauser BE, King AM, Scoles PV, Whelan GP, Burdick WP, Boulet JR, Homan AG (2005) The introduction of clinical skills assessment into the United States Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE): A description of USMLE Step 2 Clinical Skills (CS). Journal of Medical Licensure and Discipline, 91 (3): 22-25.
DeChamplain A, Swygert K, Swanson DB, Boulet JR (2006) Assessing the underlying structure of the USMLE Step 2 test of clinical skills using confirmatory factor analysis. Academic Medicine, 81 (10, suppl), S17-S20.
McKinley DW, Boulet JR, Swanson DB, Swygert K, Scott C (2006) Examinee use of encounter time in a high-stakes standardized patient exam. Academic Medicine, 81 (10, suppl), S61-S64.
Ramineni C, Harik P, Margolis MJ, Clauser BE, Swanson DB, Dillon GF (2007) Sequence effects in the USMLE Step 2 Clinical Skills Examination. Academic Medicine, 82 (10, suppl).
Harik P, Clauser BE, Grabovsky I, Nungester RJ, Swanson DB, Nandakumar R (2009) An examination of rater drift within a generalizability theory framework. Journal of Educational Measurement, 46 (1), 43-58.
Swygert K, Muller ES, Swanson DB, Scott CL (2009) Relationship between USMLE Step 2 CS Communication and Interpersonal Skills (CIS) ratings and the time spent by examinees interacting with standardized patients. Academic Medicine, 84 (10), S1-S4.
Cuddy M, Swygert KA, Swanson DB, Jobe A, (2011) A multi-level analysis of examinee gender, standardized patient gender and USMLE Step 2 Clinical Skills communication and interpersonal skills scores. Academic Medicine, 86 (10), S17-S20.
Swanson DB, van der Vleuten CPM (2013) Assessment of clinical skills with standardized patients: State-of-the-art revisited. Teaching and Learning in Medicine, 25 (sup 1), S17-S25.
Swanson DB, Roberts TE (2016) Trends in national licensing examinations in medicine. Medical Education, 50:101–114.
