ABS QE 2020 Online Failure

[WinslowPringle]

Haven't seen this posted yet...

Recommend colleagues and future surgeons take a look at the ABS website, facebook and twitter feeds.

The ABS Qualifying Exam was attempted to be held online with online proctoring. However, due to wide-spread technical issues on the part of the ABS/proctoring partners, about half of the people got to take a 4 hour test today and will take a remaining 4 hour test tomorrow, while the remainder of testers had delays and ultimately were unable to start the QE. Those who did not complete it today are now instructed to take the 8 hour exam tomorrow, if technology allows. It seems the only other option is to take it next year.

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[R2AmphiBA]

Its cancelled...
Great way to spend >$1k and request for days off from starting a new fellowship

 

[WinslowPringle]

Yep.

So, to recap, the ABS goes with a poorly-reviewed contractor with security concerns for the first ever virtual QE; has massive technical failures on day1; doesn’t update anybody in a timely fashion on day 1 and then uses Twitter (!?!?) for their updates. In the evening of day 1, their Twitter update says it will be administered still on Day 2, and some Will take 4 hours and some 8 hours. Then a few hours later, they cancel the whole thing. No talk from them of refunds or what the next step is.

My trust in the ABS could not be lower. Their management of this was beyond poor and was incredibly unprofessional.

 

[HighwayVagabond]

It was a mess. Some of us got through the first day of testing, but even those of us who did had serious technical issues. I was on with technical support for what was supposed to be the first two hours of my test. By the time my exam finally popped up I was frazzled and mentally exhausted, and I'm sure it impacted my performance. Others got booted off halfway through their block or received multiple unwarranted messages from proctors that they were in 'violation' or needed to adjust camera views throughout their exam. Still others were contacted by their proctors after the exam on social media...friend requests on facebook and such. Many stories of credit card theft, etc, though I don't personally know anyone who has experienced that. A very unprofessional experience all around to say the least.

 

[mikeGR]

People are right to be angry with the ABS for many reasons, including the technical failure yesterday and the rigidity and cost of the ABS exams (heck perhaps even the format/existence of the exam).

However, I feel we should cut the ABS some slack for now, and give them a chance to right the wrong. They were one of the first boards to transition to "virtual" board exams, and I believe the CE exam a couple of months ago went relatively smoothly. Now they encountered an unexpected problem that apparently is very difficult to solve, and they seem to at least be trying. I don't know that any of us would do better in this situation.

For the people affected by the recent technical failure- I am sorry for your experience. I understand your frustration and anxiety (I just took my gen surg boards a couple of years ago and my subspecialty boards are very soon). Let's hope that something good comes out of this disaster (eg, change in the format of the exam). This is the time for constructive feedback and new ideas/solutions.

 

[LucidSplash]

I’d be willing to cut them more slack if they hadn’t forced people to opt in this year or risk losing a year of eligibility. They should have let people defer without penalty if they wanted to. They would have had fewer people taking the exam, which would have given them a smaller pilot group to work with, and more of a chance to iron out the kinks. As it is, this was a colossal failure.

 

[TraumaLlamaMD]

I had a bad feeling from the start when I downloaded the accompanying phone app and saw 53 one star reviews... out of 54 total. The last was two stars. Most of the complaints were people who couldn’t get exams to work at all, or had their software stop working in the middle of an exam. I’m not sure how many choices of proctor programs are out there but this one seemed like a bad bet.

 

[HighwayVagabond]

People are right to be angry with the ABS for many reasons, including the technical failure yesterday and the rigidity and cost of the ABS exams (heck perhaps even the format/existence of the exam).

However, I feel we should cut the ABS some slack for now, and give them a chance to right the wrong. They were one of the first boards to transition to "virtual" board exams, and I believe the CE exam a couple of months ago went relatively smoothly. Now they encountered an unexpected problem that apparently is very difficult to solve, and they seem to at least be trying. I don't know that any of us would do better in this situation.

For the people affected by the recent technical failure- I am sorry for your experience. I understand your frustration and anxiety (I just took my gen surg boards a couple of years ago and my subspecialty boards are very soon). Let's hope that something good comes out of this disaster (eg, change in the format of the exam). This is the time for constructive feedback and new ideas/solutions.

I don't totally disagree. I actually thought taking the exam online might ultimately be better going forward in terms of limiting travel time and expenses, etc. I didn't intend to sound angry in my post. Just giving objective information about what happened. There are some angry people on twitter for sure.
I will say, I'm a little curious as to their choice in proctoring companies, though, based on the history of the one they elected to hire. I do think they did the right thing by cancelling altogether instead of trying to weigh how these disturbances may have affected us all individually...even though the thought of studying all over for this is nauseating.

 

[Dr.LeoSpaceman]

They should just use this opportunity to make the ABSITE in your final year of training function as the QE.

 

[TraumaLlamaMD]

They should just use this opportunity to make the ABSITE in your final year of training function as the QE.

Inconceivable! We don’t pay over $1000 to take the ABSITE!

 

[WinslowPringle]

The ABS has apologized and will refund our $1350 exam fee.

People are right to be angry with the ABS for many reasons, including the technical failure yesterday and the rigidity and cost of the ABS exams (heck perhaps even the format/existence of the exam).

However, I feel we should cut the ABS some slack for now, and give them a chance to right the wrong. They were one of the first boards to transition to "virtual" board exams, and I believe the CE exam a couple of months ago went relatively smoothly. Now they encountered an unexpected problem that apparently is very difficult to solve, and they seem to at least be trying. I don't know that any of us would do better in this situation.

For the people affected by the recent technical failure- I am sorry for your experience. I understand your frustration and anxiety (I just took my gen surg boards a couple of years ago and my subspecialty boards are very soon). Let's hope that something good comes out of this disaster (eg, change in the format of the exam). This is the time for constructive feedback and new ideas/solutions.

Besides the technical failure, my main complaint is that the ABS could have handled the communication and situation much better. I was expecting significant technical issues. I was not expecting the ABS to rely on a just-hacked twitter for communication. We were told the test was going forward......until around 0300 on the day of the exam.

The current email from ABS seems to indicate they are not planning to get rid of the QE this year. I don't know if that's right or not. Will be interesting to see where it goes. I hope they listen to new ideas and solutions. Regardless, I won't be taking an online exam from the ABS again.....

I’d be willing to cut them more slack if they hadn’t forced people to opt in this year or risk losing a year of eligibility. They should have let people defer without penalty if they wanted to. They would have had fewer people taking the exam, which would have given them a smaller pilot group to work with, and more of a chance to iron out the kinks. As it is, this was a colossal failure.

Absolutely. Very frustrating to have had no choice but to sign up for it, go through it.....and have it canceled. But - maybe? - will be rescheduled. Who knows.

 

[TypeADissection]

First, I am so sorry to all those who had to take their QE under these circumstances. Granted, we're all used to working under less than ideal circumstances, but everything about how this process was implemented reeks of short-sightedness and lack of appropriate planning.

Second, I am clearly watching this entire debacle from the sideline with great interest because the vascular surgery QE will also be administered online as well. I think with the colossal failure of how this exam went, the ABS will be hesitant to charge forward and make all of us take it the same way. At the same time, two good buddies of mine did get hacked with charges of $500 and $1400 charged to their credit cards, respectively. One of them also had an alert because someone was trying to open a brand new credit card under his name. So now here he is, without an exam to show for, staring down the barrel of his first weekend on call in fellowship, and with freezes placed on his bank account. If the ABS moves ahead and wants me to use the same piss poor third party proctoring site, I will forgo taking it this year and wait to take it in a Pearson VUE or Prometric center with a damn mask on. We are all too busy and under enough stress to add something this avoidable to our list. Cheers.