The Foundational Competencies for Undergraduate Medical Education (FCUME) were developed jointly by the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), the American Association of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine (AACOM), and the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) to define the core knowledge, skills, and professional behaviors expected of all graduating medical students. They provide a common framework for competency-based medical education, facilitating data comparison at the local and national levels. Thus, they serve as the foundation for our program objectives, curriculum development, and assessment efforts.

Because the Medical Knowledge competency described by the FCUME is so broad, we further map two distinct domains of Medical Knowledge disciplines to aid curriculum development and assessment efforts. These are Foundational Biomedical Science (FBS) knowledge and Clinical Science (CS) knowledge. National osteopathic examination blueprints help define and organize the knowledge taught in each of these domains and related disciplines, enabling comparison of institution level data to nationally comparative data to aid student exam preparation and continuous quality improvement of the curriculum.

The NBOME COMLEX-USA Dimension 2 Clinical Presentations define the clinical problem contexts that frame osteopathic medical education and licensure examination. Mapping curriculum to these presentations supports student exam preparation and enables comparison of institutional coverage to national examination blueprints.