ABIM Pass Rates - Interesting Read

[RainerMaria]

http://www.abim.org/pdf/pass-rates/residency-program-pass-rates.pdf

Is it reasonable to make an arbitrary de minimis pass rate of 80-85% for programs? I mean they are filtering us out too, we might as well filter them. I was surprised to find some programs I applied to, some with decent reputations, with abysmal pass rates in the low 70's and 60's.

Discuss amongst yourselves.

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[GOINGDUMB]

NICE! Thanks for posting this!!

 

[jdh71]

http://www.abim.org/pdf/pass-rates/residency-program-pass-rates.pdf

Is it reasonable to make an arbitrary de minimis pass rate of 80-85% for programs? I mean they are filtering us out too, we might as well filter them. I was surprised to find some programs I applied to, some with decent reputations, with abysmal pass rates in the low 70's and 60's.

Discuss amongst yourselves.

A program can't make your study for boards.

One of things you won't understand as a medical student until you've finished at the end of June some three years after starting IM, but three years in IM is just the barest, barelyest, minimum needed to leave training and be allowed to be responsible for taking care of people because they've shown you the very, most basics. Even at Hopkins or UCSF, you'll not see every single diagnosis in the book - your patient population will largely be bread and butter IM, which probably admits about 10 diagnoses on the regular. In your out-patient clinic you may never do a lot of out patient specialty work-ups because you will refer them.

The bottom line? Just doing residency is NOT enough to pass your boards. The same way that that just doing the first two years of medical school is not enough to pass step 1. You need to study. The ABIM test is tough, but it's fair and passable if you study.

I've always thought it was a bad metric to hold programs accountable for board pass rates, when all they can do is lead a horse to water.

 

[gutonc]

What jdh said. You are certainly welcome to use this as a tool to differentiate programs but you do so at your peril (and you should 95% CI for your cutoff). In fact, using the 95% CI and setting a minimum of 80%, I was hard pressed to find a "good" program that didn't meet these criteria. In fact, of the half-decent programs, I only found 3 that didn't meet these cutoffs:
UAMS
SLU
TT-Lubbock

Meanwhile, there are some truly horrific programs with excellent board pass rates. So clearly, that can't be put completely on the program (although it bears some responsibility to be certain).

Also, unlike the ABEM exam, which appears to be closely related to the actual daily practice of the specialty, ABIM (and other specialty boards) tend to focus on the minutiae, fascinomas and rare presentation/diagnosis stuff. Unlike actual practice, there is very little bread and butter medicine on the ABIM exam. So again, you can certainly use it as an additional tool to evaluate and rank programs, but using it as an absolute cutoff is just dumb.

 

[RainerMaria]

What jdh said. You are certainly welcome to use this as a tool to differentiate programs but you do so at your peril (and you should 95% CI for your cutoff). In fact, using the 95% CI and setting a minimum of 80%, I was hard pressed to find a "good" program that didn't meet these criteria. In fact, of the half-decent programs, I only found 3 that didn't meet these cutoffs:
UAMS
SLU
TT-Lubbock

Meanwhile, there are some truly horrific programs with excellent board pass rates. So clearly, that can't be put completely on the program (although it bears some responsibility to be certain).

Also, unlike the ABEM exam, which appears to be closely related to the actual daily practice of the specialty, ABIM (and other specialty boards) tend to focus on the minutiae, fascinomas and rare presentation/diagnosis stuff. Unlike actual practice, there is very little bread and butter medicine on the ABIM exam. So again, you can certainly use it as an additional tool to evaluate and rank programs, but using it as an absolute cutoff is just dumb.

Agree that this mostly says that some programs have highly motivated residents and some do not. That being said, good programs should have in place a structured curriculum to prevent this for the remaining residents who are not good time-managers? Or it says something about the quality of the residents in the program? Who knows.

I agree that some horribly malignant programs will have 100% pass rates and look pristine from the outside.

That being said, I'm sure a lot of 4th years will be asking, "What's your pass rate?" during the interview. If the interviewer says, "well, a fourth of our students failed last year, but don't worry, our confidence interval is between 60 and 80," that is not terribly reassuring.

 

[Live4Life]

What is concerning for me is that on one program's website, it states that their board pass rate is 100% but according to the ABIM website it is in the 60s. I'm wondering how this reporting discrepancy exists since it is a fairly reputable program.

 

[wyme84]

The report was only for first time takers

 

[Dextrocardia]

What is concerning for me is that on one program's website, it states that their board pass rate is 100% but according to the ABIM website it is in the 60s. I'm wondering how this reporting discrepancy exists since it is a fairly reputable program.

Not sure who you are referring to, but I've been wondering the same thing about Tulane. The document says pass rate is 62% and website says 100%. Quite a difference.

 

[RainerMaria]

And because more data is better:

2008-2010

http://medchiefs.bsd.uchicago.edu/curricula/lectures/documents/residency-program-pass-rates.pdf

2005-2008

http://www.scribd.com/doc/27548196/2005-2007-Internal-Medicine-Board-Exam-Pass-Rate

Other threads:

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/archive/index.php/t-243890.html

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/archive/index.php/t-601627.html

General gist from these two is that there is not much difference between a 95% and 100% pass rate, but much lower, red flags are raised. While the boards may not be applicable to practice, they are a core competency that must be met. More food for thought.

 

[surge55]

I'm happy to see my program only had one first-time fail and a 94% pass rate though

 

[2012ABIM]

I'm happy to see my program only had one first-time fail and a 94% pass rate though

Maybe your program is too small.

Small programs usually has high pass rate.

Big programs always have failed test takers and low pass rate.