ABA Pain Boards 2025
Started by po_boy
what in the actual F** was that exam. I thought i had prepared... i was marking every damn question
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....
I'm just tired of these exams. I studying all that I could, and was still like "wtf"
When are these results coming out?
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
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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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.
(to be clear psychiatrists who sit for pain boards)
from abpn.org
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.
(to be clear psychiatrists who sit for pain boards)
from abpn.org
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
Not excusing failure. I am merely commenting on the posts above that the exam is more neuro and PM&R relevant than anesthesia related.
Yeah, I know pain is traditionally dominated by anesthesia, but I definitely did not feel disadvantaged on that exam from an EM background.
Anyway I passed the exam; so i can move on
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Congrats!
