Thank you for the info.
So there is no anesthesia exam that if you do poorly on would get you dismissed from a program ?
Well.
The new (2-year-old) ABA Basic exam taken at the end of the CA-1 year is a "must pass" exam to advance. So yes, if you can't pass that after however many tries you get, you're done.
The rest of the exams aren't supposed to be used for promotion/probation purposes. That doesn't mean you should blow them off, though.
For one, you're a lot more likely to pass the actual ABA written and oral board exams if you've been steadily and effectively preparing for them throughout residency. This is what the AKT/ITE feedback is for. Part of that preparation (IMO) should be some intermittent dedicated prep for the AKTs and ITEs. Cramming to catch up at the end of your residency when the real thing is looming is a rough way to go, a setup for failure.
Two, you've got to know that the faculty are generally aware of who scores great on the AKTs and ITEs and who does poorly, and that can cast a soothing light or a shadow on their other impressions of you. Do poorly, have a bad day in the OR, and the subjective evals they write are more likely to have phrases like "poor fund of knowledge" in them. Do well, have the same bad day in the OR, and they're more likely to write it off as just a bad day. Enough bad evals, you can find yourself out.
Resident evaluation is hard. Few attendings have any formal training as teachers. As a group we generally do a lousy job of giving useful negative feedback, and residents everywhere often complain that they didn't know they were behind until the department got formal about remediation. In anesthesia, resident self-assessment is extra hard because we work alone 99% of the time, almost never seeing our peers in action. It's easy to fall behind and not realize it until you're way behind.
Lots and lots of people do poorly on the AKTs and ITEs and still graduate because they're otherwise safe and competent. Some struggle to pass their boards, some don't.
The best answer is to work harder than you think you need to.