Introduction: About the COMAT Examinations

The Clinical COMAT examinations cover eight different areas of osteopathic medicine. Each examination covers one clinical area. The tests are administered by various colleges of osteopathic medicine (COMs) and the term COMAT means Comprehensive Osteopathic Medical Achievement Test. The examinations are given by computer and are each 125 questions in length. You, the test taker, are given two hours and thirty minutes to take the examination.

The COMAT examination you take will not be the same examination each time you take it; they are given and proctored by the individual COMs. You will not be allowed access to books, a cell phone, or another computerized device or tablet while you are taking the test. The test is in a multiple-choice format with five possible choices per question. The clinical COMAT examination is given after you have gained clinical knowledge about how to care for patients with certain medical and osteopathic conditions. The examination you are given is designed to test what you have learned in your clinical rotations.

The examinations are structured so that the mean on the test is 100 points with a standard deviation of 10 points. In many ways, it tests not only your clinical skills but the teaching abilities of your college. The information from the examination scores are used to help the college improve their curriculum and standards. COMs are allowed to give a COMAT examination up to 10 times per year with each test being different but otherwise reliable and comparable to the other tests.

The COMAT examinations are structured in two seamless dimensions. The first dimension involves patient presentation in multiple areas of each topic. The second dimension focuses on physician tasks, such as the history and physical examination, differential diagnostic processes, management of disease states and, in some cases, procedures necessary to be able to perform. The NBOME or National Board of Osteopathic Medical Examiners website offers specifics of how these things are

weighted in each examination. This audio course has been designed to accurately reflect the subject material and question format you will encounter as part of the actual COMAT Examinations.