Theoretically, I actually can see some value to the idea. Right now, Step 1 is valued so much more than everything else that a lot students are spending $50K a year to mostly stay home and learn high yield facts with Anki and UWorld. If Step 1 was truly pass/fail, and you could give pre-clinical years more educational value than just cramming high yield facts inefficiently, that would be a good thing.
Before everybody jumps all over me, I get why it’s not— residencies are always going to want something to stratify applicants with, and without Step 1 that mostly leaves prestige, which would come back to bite most of us.
Just saying I wish there WAS a way to decrease the relative importance of Step 1 so you could judge candidates more (for lack of a better word) holistically while teaching pre-clinical students more clinical pearls and useful skills and fewer obscure factoids.