Articles Pathway

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I know this is a bit of a necrobump. Really disappointing how bad some of the test questions are. Especially since they clearly don't go back and update tests that I assume many other people must have left feedback for at this point?
 
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Is anyone else doing the 10 year pathway, doing the test again? im the only one i know that selected that pathway? I felt like doing a test every 10 years didnt seem as bad as the article thing every 3. Hopefully its not a pain in the butt test, lol
 
annoyedpsychiatrist said:
Is anyone else doing the 10 year pathway, doing the test again? im the only one i know that selected that pathway? I felt like doing a test every 10 years didnt seem as bad as the article thing every 3. Hopefully its not a pain in the butt test, lol
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I thought they got rid of the test? My understanding was they decided everyone has to do the articles.

I never did the test (wasn't 10 y out of training before they switched to articles) but I wouldn't want to have to arrange to take a day out of my life to take a dumb test. I like the article approach. It takes me about 20-30 min to read an article and do the questions so I do one if I have a patient cancellation. It's not a big burden and some of the articles are even interesting/useful. From a CME perspective I think they are more clinically applicable than memorizing random information for a test.
 
tr said:
I thought they got rid of the test? My understanding was they decided everyone has to do the articles.

I never did the test (wasn't 10 y out of training before they switched to articles) but I wouldn't want to have to arrange to take a day out of my life to take a dumb test. I like the article approach. It takes me about 20-30 min to read an article and do the questions so I do one if I have a patient cancellation. It's not a big burden and some of the articles are even interesting/useful. From a CME perspective I think they are more clinically applicable than memorizing random information for a test.
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That might happen eventually but the test is still an option. I have a friend from residency who insists they need to do the test because they feel they are not disciplined enough to read the articles so just taking a test is easier. I find this mentality...baffling, but to each their own. I guess for people doing purely clinical work on salary having a paid day off work to do an exam could be a pleasant diversion. I am not on salary and so fitting things in in ten minute bursts between patients is way more copacetic. I did actually learn something from some of the articles as you noted, although the questions seem almost universally terrible.
 
clausewitz2 said:
That might happen eventually but the test is still an option. I have a friend from residency who insists they need to do the test because they feel they are not disciplined enough to read the articles so just taking a test is easier. I find this mentality...baffling, but to each their own. I guess for people doing purely clinical work on salary having a paid day off work to do an exam could be a pleasant diversion. I am not on salary and so fitting things in in ten minute bursts between patients is way more copacetic. I did actually learn something from some of the articles as you noted, although the questions seem almost universally terrible.
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Agreed. Of course people have different perspectives. But I think the article pathway is much less onerous, and it's actually clinically relevant compared to cramming for a test every 10 years.
 
If you fail enough articles (which you might since the questions are basically zen koans in a lot of cases) isn't the test still required?
 
annoyedpsychiatrist said:
Is anyone else doing the 10 year pathway, doing the test again? im the only one i know that selected that pathway? I felt like doing a test every 10 years didnt seem as bad as the article thing every 3. Hopefully its not a pain in the butt test, lol
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I'm still doing the test. I prefer having one big event I can prep for rather than death by a thousand cuts, which is how I feel about the articles.
 
comp1 said:
If you fail enough articles (which you might since the questions are basically zen koans in a lot of cases) isn't the test still required?
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Thankfully I didn't fail any, even though I was pretty concerned about the ASD one. Most of the questions I got "wrong" I would contend I actually got right, but that ended up just being one question on those tests. But yes, I believe you are correct. Plus you have to scrounge for more SACME if you don't do the articles pathway.
 
vanfanal said:
Ctrl+F is your friend....but some of those articles are interesting enough that I found myself genuinely reading them.
Also, found most of the paid ones on SciHub.
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90% of the time, this is accurate. There were a few that didn't actually draw anything directly from the article, despite saying "according to the article." (Again ref ASD article.) Or there was another that drew incorrect inferences from the article, but that was one of the ones I did months ago, so I can't recall which specifically.
 
These "I got it wrong, but I think I was right" is what I meant by zen koans. They need to stick to concrete knowledge and quit it with the vague interpretation stuff. I did the pilot, so maybe things were just really bad then, but it seemed to me that the questions were of extraordinarily low quality both in terms of phrasing and content. This seems to have been borne out as they had to disqualify many of the questions from the pilot. I'm not sure why they think they have to make it complicated. Complicated does not make something better.
 
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Honestly you only need 4/5 correct on each article and can fail a lot of them (max of 17 for me as a dual board ABCC participant). I have completed almost my full 50 without failing any yet. Even though some questions are poorly written, the bar is set pretty low to be considered in compliance.

I also read each article and found most of them were actually useful and well selected, I prefer the article pathway over a renewal exam.
 
I might be the odd one out but I love the articles pathway option. I knocked out 20 during a half-day in clinic where all my patients no-showed. Ctrl + F is the key. It's way less time than I would have spent studying for the exam. Agreed that the articles could have been more clinically relevant and test questions could have been way better written but I'd still take it over an exam every 10 years.
 
comp1 said:
These "I got it wrong, but I think I was right" is what I meant by zen koans. They need to stick to concrete knowledge and quit it with the vague interpretation stuff. I did the pilot, so maybe things were just really bad then, but it seemed to me that the questions were of extraordinarily low quality both in terms of phrasing and content. This seems to have been borne out as they had to disqualify many of the questions from the pilot. I'm not sure why they think they have to make it complicated. Complicated does not make something better.
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Funny enough, some of the examples I'm thinking of were "concrete" questions and the person writing the question managed to mess that up...
 
Atreides said:
I might be the odd one out but I love the articles pathway option. I knocked out 20 during a half-day in clinic where all my patients no-showed. Ctrl + F is the key. It's way less time than I would have spent studying for the exam. Agreed that the articles could have been more clinically relevant and test questions could have been way better written but I'd still take it over an exam every 10 years.
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I'm fine either way but do like the option. I'm a weirdo that enjoys taking tests, and I probably wouldn't study for a recert beyond doing a Qbank which I would get CME for anyway, so the article pathway would probably actually be more time consuming for me. That said I will be trying to do the article pathway because I'd just rather not spend the money to pay to take boards again.
 
Stagg737 said:
Does it really? I haven't started the articles yet but I thought the article pathway was free unless you don't have access to them...
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You have to pay an annual fee to maintain your certification. That is the same regardless of whether you do the articles vs take the exam. There is no additional fee to take the exam. IT used to be that you paid the exam fee every 10 yrs, but for quite some time now they have this annual fee instead so they have a steady stream of income coming in (though you can go up to 6 yrs without paying before they yank your board certification)
 
I thought about it this way. I'm a simple person.

Older docs got board certified for life. Then they made you get renewal of your board certification every 10 years (while older docs got grandfathered in for eternal board certification). Now they asked about the article pathway voluntarily.

Again me being a simple person, I prefer staying on the "older" model as everything new is usually more burdensome and nuanced. If I don't pass the board every 10 years then it's time to hang up the gloves.
 
also correct me if im wrong, the recert is specifically designed for practicing attendings, with less material than initial certiifcation. I think the pass rate is fairly high as well?

I probably wont do anything crazy for it as well. In a way it motivates me to stay updated on material
 
annoyedpsychiatrist said:
Is anyone else doing the 10 year pathway, doing the test again? im the only one i know that selected that pathway? I felt like doing a test every 10 years didnt seem as bad as the article thing every 3. Hopefully its not a pain in the butt test, lol
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I did. I took my 2nd recert exam 3 years ago, but I'm not planning on doing it again or the articles. I plan to let me certification lapse when it expires in 2031 as I feel it does nothing to make me a better psychiatrist and it isn't required where I work. I feel as if 30 years of double certification are good enough.
 
milesed said:
I did. I took my 2nd recert exam 3 years ago, but I'm not planning on doing it again or the articles. I plan to let me certification lapse when it expires in 2031 as I feel it does nothing to make me a better psychiatrist and it isn't required where I work. I feel as if 30 years of double certification are good enough.
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You could consider certifying under NBPAS before your current BC lapses--they seem to be gaining steam with acceptance by hospitals and credentialing bodies. But also I imagine you might be thinking about retirement around that time, anyway.
 
I did the articles this year. I finished all of them in about 7-8 hours split up over the course of 3 days. Only failed 1 of them. Using control+F, I found this to be incredibly easy. Even the one test I failed, I failed because I was rushing to get done before seeing a patient. If you take your time, each one can be done in ~10-15 minutes, sometime less if you are already familiar with the topic.
 
So I did the pilot and definitely did not find the articles helpful or useful. I also found the questions to be extremely poorly written where I could write a paragraph explaining why at least two answers were correct or why none of the answers were correct. This objectively bore out given the sheer number of questions they invalidated and just awarded automatic credit to for the pilot. Most questions were certainly NOT Ctrl-F for the answer, at least what they put was the right answer. Maybe the poster had a similar experience? It seems like those of you who did it after the pilot have had a much, much better experience. I'm sure hoping for that next year as what I did was kind of nightmarish and I think I would have enjoyed the test more.
 
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comp1 said:
So I did the pilot and definitely did not find the articles helpful or useful. I also found the questions to be extremely poorly written where I could write a paragraph explaining why at least two answers were correct or why none of the answers were correct. This objectively bore out given the sheer number of questions they invalidated and just awarded automatic credit to for the pilot. Most questions were certainly NOT Ctrl-F for the answer, at least what they put was the right answer. Maybe the poster had a similar experience? It seems like those of you who did it after the pilot have had a much, much better experience. I'm sure hoping for that next year as what I did was kind of nightmarish and I think I would have enjoyed the test more.
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Hasn't changed. Good summary.
@thelastpsych @kookfu
 
I think the articles written by actual psychiatrists focussing on clinical scenarios/ psychopharm were easy to read and comprehend and the questions were well thought out. Its the research articles with their overstuffed acronyms and filled to the brim with useless statistics which were a (slight) problem for me.
 
I found powering through them caused me to fail, really needed to make sure was paying attention and reading some/carefully ctrl-F searching to be able to pass them.
 
Due date is Dec 15 at midnight. Does this mean you have all day sunday till midnight or saturday dec 14 night when it hits midnight?

I could use the extra day..
 
Pretty sure you can catch up on one overdue block...
 
comp1 said:
So I did the pilot and definitely did not find the articles helpful or useful. I also found the questions to be extremely poorly written where I could write a paragraph explaining why at least two answers were correct or why none of the answers were correct. This objectively bore out given the sheer number of questions they invalidated and just awarded automatic credit to for the pilot. Most questions were certainly NOT Ctrl-F for the answer, at least what they put was the right answer. Maybe the poster had a similar experience? It seems like those of you who did it after the pilot have had a much, much better experience. I'm sure hoping for that next year as what I did was kind of nightmarish and I think I would have enjoyed the test more.
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Yeah they did an overall good job with this round. I passed my 50 needed for a dual boarded CAP with 53 tests and all 3 fails were on areas that my clinical practice is specialized in (and in my first 10 articles total) so I went with what I thought was the answer instead of being more diligent going through the articles. The tests were written to avoid 100% control +f answers, but honestly if you know how to read a scientific paper and use control +f, it was very straightforward. Several of the articles were very well written, good metanalysis, good guideline updates, and most at least somewhat applicable to clinical practice. Now of course I avoided articles that sounded uninteresting or inapplicable to clinical practice so there was certainly a bias towards what I wanted to learn (as it should be).
 
Merovinge said:
Yeah they did an overall good job with this round. I passed my 50 needed for a dual boarded CAP with 53 tests and all 3 fails were on areas that my clinical practice is specialized in (and in my first 10 articles total) so I went with what I thought was the answer instead of being more diligent going through the articles. The tests were written to avoid 100% control +f answers, but honestly if you know how to read a scientific paper and use control +f, it was very straightforward. Several of the articles were very well written, good metanalysis, good guideline updates, and most at least somewhat applicable to clinical practice. Now of course I avoided articles that sounded uninteresting or inapplicable to clinical practice so there was certainly a bias towards what I wanted to learn (as it should be).
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This accords with my general impression, some garbage articles in the pile but more reasonably relevant and interesting things than expected. 7/10, would article again
 
any advice for completing the pip portion? Still need to cram mine in...
 
Sending off the questionnaires for patient feedback is straightforward.
And if they come back well, the summary for improvement is easy, nothing to improve.
 
Sushirolls said:
Sending off the questionnaires for patient feedback is straightforward.
And if they come back well, the summary for improvement is easy, nothing to improve.
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Easier to do the patient feedback or the clinical where you review x number of charts on patients?
 
DOswag said:
Easier to do the patient feedback or the clinical where you review x number of charts on patients?
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Way easier to do the clinical review. I paid for one of the PIP products and it gave me a sheet where I was supposed to go through the charts of 5 patients with MDD and check off if I did/documented various things.

I documented all the various things and had no room to improvement via their tool, so I didn't really see a reason to go back through and actually do the second 5 chart reviews, since I know I already document/do those things with all of my patients as part of my intake template. I guess I will if audited.
 
Merovinge said:
Yeah they did an overall good job with this round. I passed my 50 needed for a dual boarded CAP with 53 tests and all 3 fails were on areas that my clinical practice is specialized in (and in my first 10 articles total) so I went with what I thought was the answer instead of being more diligent going through the articles. The tests were written to avoid 100% control +f answers, but honestly if you know how to read a scientific paper and use control +f, it was very straightforward. Several of the articles were very well written, good metanalysis, good guideline updates, and most at least somewhat applicable to clinical practice. Now of course I avoided articles that sounded uninteresting or inapplicable to clinical practice so there was certainly a bias towards what I wanted to learn (as it should be).
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Yeah they weren't too bad overall in the end. There were a few lame ones in there like the one author paper by Loewenstein basically trying to "raise awareness" of DID.....
 
calvnandhobbs68 said:
Yeah they weren't too bad overall in the end. There were a few lame ones in there like the one author paper by Loewenstein basically trying to "raise awareness" of DID.....
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They did attenuate some of the classical thoughts around DID, but yeah I eye rolled through that one.
 
Trismegistus4 said:
Purely hypothetically, does the deadline of 12/15 mean we have to get them done by the end of the day tomorrow, or the end of the day Sunday?
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I called. Its the latter. Thus, Sunday night at 1159pm est is my target though technically its midnight in cst. Don't want to cut it too close..
 
finalpsychyear said:
I called. Its the latter. Thus, Sunday night at 1159pm est is my target though technically its midnight in cst. Don't want to cut it too close..
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Someone lied to you. I had 4 left and am locked out. Many on the Facebook group thought the same thing… extremely frustrated as I though I had to the end of the day and the wording is not clear that they meant 11:59pm on Dec 14th.

So does anyone know what happens now if we did not complete the articles on time? Are we completely screwed?
 
DOswag said:
Someone lied to you. I had 4 left and am locked out. Many on the Facebook group thought the same thing… extremely frustrated as I though I had to the end of the day and the wording is not clear that they meant 11:59pm on Dec 14th.

So does anyone know what happens now if we did not complete the articles on time? Are we completely screwed?
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Crap dude. Sorry to hear that. I somehow managed to get it all done yesterday. I would be very ticked right now as I could have easily left some for today. I think you have to take the 10 year boards when your due. They make all the requirements deadline on 12/31 except the articles. I would call them and see what the options are.
 
Sushirolls said:
Sending off the questionnaires for patient feedback is straightforward.
And if they come back well, the summary for improvement is easy, nothing to improve.
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I just need to do the PIP by eoy. Can a supervisor just do a pre and post eval for me and i am good ?
 
DOswag said:
Someone lied to you. I had 4 left and am locked out. Many on the Facebook group thought the same thing… extremely frustrated as I though I had to the end of the day and the wording is not clear that they meant 11:59pm on Dec 14th.

So does anyone know what happens now if we did not complete the articles on time? Are we completely screwed?
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I am in the same boat.

By standard convention 12/15/2024 by midnight means by midnight of that day. (i.e. the very last moment of that day)

Legally speaking the term they used is considered ambiguous and in proceedings will favor the standard convention or give benefit of doubt to the person signing the contract, not the party that used an ambiguous term. I have already spoken to an attorney. I took off this weekend to complete this task and completed about 25 of them by the end of the day yesterday. Even if they open it back up for a few days, I am still pissed off.


If they don't fix their error, they may be hearing from some lawyers.
 
I was typing out my response that I'm also locked out, went back in and it is now open again with a due date listed December 16th.
 
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