Examination Scores but not Clinical Performance Correlate With Duration of Preclinical Didactic Time: A Synchronous Comparison of Second- Versus Third-Year Medical Students on the Surgery Clerkship

•Many medical schools have reduced preclinical time to initiate rotations earlier.•The effects of this trend on performance later in the surgery clerkship are unclear.•Second- and third-year student performance on the surgery clerkship was compared.•Third-years outperformed second-years on objective examination metrics.•Second- and third-years performed similarly on clinical metrics.