ABA Pain Boards 2025

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po_boy said:
Did anyone take this and feel good?
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what in the actual F** was that exam. I thought i had prepared... i was marking every damn question
 
DolorMD said:
what in the actual F** was that exam. I thought i had prepared... i was marking every damn question
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Exact same experience. I flagged half of them. I did Board Vitals x2 and was scoring above 90%. Watched all the Danne Miller lectures too.
 
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po_boy said:
Exact same experience. I flagged half of them. I did Board Vitals x2 and was scoring above 90%. Watched all the Danne Miller lectures too.
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Bro.. me too, i did BV and Huntoon twice. I was second guessing myself on everything.
 
I did BV once. Every question was basically testing something normal in the most abnormal way possible. Googled every single q I could remember, and got most of them wrong. 77% pass rate last year....
 
HinduHammer said:
I did BV once. Every question was basically testing something normal in the most abnormal way possible. Googled every single q I could remember, and got most of them wrong. 77% pass rate last year....
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I'm just tired of these exams. I studying all that I could, and was still like "wtf"
 
When are these results coming out?
 
Judging by the timing from last year, we should be getting them this week.
 
I'm not ready for the sad emoji.
 
I called yesterday and they said "sometime next week." I think last year was around Nov 7
 
looks like system is down
 
po_boy said:
Did anyone take this and feel good?
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I felt so so and passed.
I used boardvitals and pain exam and memorized all the questions over 3-6 months; I studied harder since I failed it last year.
hopefully, this info is helpful.
pain exam actually states on its website that 97% of its customers pass.
 
I think a board exam where only 78% of the examinees pass (all of whom did a pain fellowship) is sort of poorly designed. also, this pass rate is the lowest of all the other subspecialty anesthesia board exams. Interestingly, I saw that physical medicine residents pass with a rate of 98% which implies that there must be a lot of physical medicine questions that cause anesthesia based pain people to fail because we are not exposed to this material and is out of the realm of our day to day practice.
also, I can not recall where I saw this statistic but I heard that only 50% of examinees who has been out for over 20 years pass; that is sort of sad that it is so hard for the guys that have been out for a while.
that's my 2 cents
 
there are multiple reasons that older examinees have a lower pass rates

they do not have as much exposure to changes in medicine.
some of those who have been out for over 20 years may never have had to pass pain boards in the first place.
they do not put in as weight or time to study because of multiple factors
senior learners require greater repetition to retain. that is difficult with time constraints from full time employment
clinical practice teaches different info, some of which may conflict with research/opinions that come out of ivory towers used to make board questions.


finally, id be a little suspicious of data that comes from a website such as passmachine.com that is out to sell you a product.

and supposed data can be manipulated if taken out of context.

look at this chart and see, under Pain Medicine row, where one could cherry pick only 83% pass rate. all the other data points however are >91%. and note the extremely small sample size. that 83% is because 2 people failed in 2024.

1762172659426.png

(to be clear psychiatrists who sit for pain boards)
from abpn.org
 
miko1972 said:
I think a board exam where only 78% of the examinees pass (all of whom did a pain fellowship) is sort of poorly designed. also, this pass rate is the lowest of all the other subspecialty anesthesia board exams. Interestingly, I saw that physical medicine residents pass with a rate of 98% which implies that there must be a lot of physical medicine questions that cause anesthesia based pain people to fail because we are not exposed to this material and is out of the realm of our day to day practice.
also, I can not recall where I saw this statistic but I heard that only 50% of examinees who has been out for over 20 years pass; that is sort of sad that it is so hard for the guys that have been out for a while.
that's my 2 cents
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I remember years ago getting a question where the patient reached maximal medical improvement and I was like “….what’s that?”

I looked it up later and discovered it was a workers compensation thing and wondered which fellowship programs were seeing Work Comp. I wonder if it’s a concept PM&R is introduced to.
 
In general PM&R usually scores 10% higher than anesthesia on the ABA pain boards (high 80s-mid 90s pass rate vs high 70s low 80s). The questions they ask definitely skew toward PM&R. My test had a lot on specific PT modalities that were literally eponyms, EMG findings, DME/braces, PRP, etc. Luckily I passed so its all behind me now.
 
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I doubt the exam is written to favor PM&R. It probably has everything to do with the fact that PM&R simply is a more closely related to pain medicine than anesthesia so naturally it will be easier for PM&R physicians.
 
Snowmen96 said:
I doubt the exam is written to favor PM&R. It probably has everything to do with the fact that PM&R simply is a more closely related to pain medicine than anesthesia so naturally it will be easier for PM&R physicians.
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I dont disagree. and with the way the field is going, probably won't be many anesthesiologists entering the field anyways
 
i agree with Aghast. never heard of MMI as anesthesia resident. never did an IME. never read an EMG and had at least 3 questions on my board exam.


from an alternative perspective, i dont think that Pain is "more closely aligned" with PMR.

pain medicine is an amalgamation of PMR, Anesthesiology, Psychiatry and Neurology and good pain doctors require knowledge in all fields.


in fact, pain medicine seems to be going more interventional from a KOL standpoint. yes, the evaluation and functionality aspects of pain medicine favors PMR. but the procedural aspect is more in line with anesthesiology training.
 
I would say a graduating neurology resident and PM&R resident crush this exam compared to a graduating anesthesia resident.

This is the outline: https://www.theaba.org/wp-content/uploads/pdfs/PM_Content_Outline.pdf

The exam is made by writers testing from these topics. Procedures are a very small portion of the exam. Nothing is relevant in anesthesia except perioperative pain, epidurals, and some pharmacology.
 
Performance Reports released
 
bubaghanush said:
I would say a graduating neurology resident and PM&R resident crush this exam compared to a graduating anesthesia resident.

This is the outline: https://www.theaba.org/wp-content/uploads/pdfs/PM_Content_Outline.pdf

The exam is made by writers testing from these topics. Procedures are a very small portion of the exam. Nothing is relevant in anesthesia except perioperative pain, epidurals, and some pharmacology.
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Completely irrelevant when anyone who has made it far enough in their training and career to sit for the exam has absolutely no business failing it. The exam was not challenging nor difficult so long as the examinee actually put in some time and effort to study for it with one or two tried and true resources.
 
hopefulgasman said:
Completely irrelevant when anyone who has made it far enough in their training and career to sit for the exam has absolutely no business failing it. The exam was not challenging nor difficult so long as the examinee actually put in some time and effort to study for it with one or two tried and true resources.
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Not excusing failure. I am merely commenting on the posts above that the exam is more neuro and PM&R relevant than anesthesia related.
 
bubaghanush said:
Not excusing failure. I am merely commenting on the posts above that the exam is more neuro and PM&R relevant than anesthesia related.
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Yeah, I know pain is traditionally dominated by anesthesia, but I definitely did not feel disadvantaged on that exam from an EM background.
 
Can anyone provide me with data regarding EM applicants who took this exam and how many passed vs failed? This would probably be available to some one who took the exam through ABEM
 
by the way thanks for agreeing with me, nvo
I passed yeah
 
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