Cardiac boards [rant]

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But so smart, bro.

Gonna be so smart.
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I checked the ABA website this am and the Diplomate directory, which reopened with the other MOCA stuff, is now down again for maintenance. Maybe this is them updating the website with test results? One can hope...
 
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instrumentrearwindow said:
I checked the ABA website this am and the Diplomate directory, which reopened with the other MOCA stuff, is now down again for maintenance. Maybe this is them updating the website with test results? One can hope...
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Yeah, a friend texted me saying scores were up, but by the time I went to try and look, the portal was down for "maintenance" again.
 
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I was quietly waiting until February to care about this.

All these posts have me checking ABA 4 times a day.

Having said that, the *right* way to do this is to send an email to test takers with results. Keep the site down for a couple hours afterwards. I should find out whether I passed before my colleagues see it online.
 
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Score report is up. Just have to go to menu -> account settings -> posted documents
 
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I was told by a colleague that the score reports were actually posted in error, so now they are off the website already. The official reporting is supposed to be next week so I wouldn't bother rechecking the website until then. Don't know what is going to change between now and Monday though...
 
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instrumentrearwindow said:
I was told by a colleague that the score reports were actually posted in error, so now they are off the website already. The official reporting is supposed to be next week so I wouldn't bother rechecking the website until then. Don't know what is going to change between now and Monday though...
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LOL

Looks like the ABA is trying to give NBE a run for their money in the clownshow department.

How ridiculous.

Thanks SDN for the tip on getting a sneak peak!
 
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instrumentrearwindow said:
I was told by a colleague that the score reports were actually posted in error, so now they are off the website already. The official reporting is supposed to be next week so I wouldn't bother rechecking the website until then. Don't know what is going to change between now and Monday though...
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lol, they can’t change the passing score or the percentage that passed or they’ll have a crap storm on their hands.

What a joke.
 
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Robotic Wis-Hipple said:
lol, they can’t change the passing score or the percentage that passed or they’ll have a crap storm on their hands.

What a joke.
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Well, I got an amended report on my NBE. My raw score didn’t change, I think, but the percentile did. And they’ve been doing this for over a decade.

And I’m not sure anyone outside the committee would know if the pass rate changed.
 
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Bertelman said:
Well, I got an amended report on my NBE. My raw score didn’t change, I think, but the percentile did. And they’ve been doing this for over a decade.

And I’m not sure anyone outside the committee would know if the pass rate changed.
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The pass rate should be easy enough to calculate. Mean of 250, SD of 50 with pass line of 150 😳. Glad I took the first iteration. Sorry for those few who were unsuccessful.
 
I looked back at those emails. My percentile, etc. didn’t change. What did change is my percent correct. By like 20 points. And it took a week for them to inform me. Obviously didn’t change my results.

Point is, maybe they never intended we would be smart enough to find the scores. Maybe it was a test post. But people get stuff wrong. I’m trying hard to figure out why they would post results then take them down.

Not trying to get anyone’s hopes up.
 
AK1010 said:
The pass rate should be easy enough to calculate. Mean of 250, SD of 50 with pass line of 150 😳. Glad I took the first iteration. Sorry for those few who were unsuccessful.
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97.7% pass rate in a normal distribution.
 
instrumentrearwindow said:
I was told by a colleague that the score reports were actually posted in error, so now they are off the website already. The official reporting is supposed to be next week so I wouldn't bother rechecking the website until then. Don't know what is going to change between now and Monday though...
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It’s like the SEC bitcoin ETF leak.
 
Not sure if this happened earlier but I noticed just now they updated the ABA directory to show "In the ABA Examination System" for Adult Cardiac (despite a pass today). Would love to know what's actually preventing these clowns from just posting the official results.
 
Maybe they wanted to have the score reports up at the same time they say whether or not they're granting certification to people like vector2 and I that are CCM folks applying for certification under temporary pathway 2?
 
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DolphinVA said:
97.7% pass rate in a normal distribution.
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Exam scores almost never fall in a normal distribution.

Almost always skewed to the high side, with many outliers.

Questions are often highly correlated. For example, if you get #7 correct you're very likely to get #52 correct also, because they test the same or very similar information; if you miss #7 you'll probably miss #52 also.

Really difficult tests might have bimodal or multimodal distributions. If you get a concept, you get all the questions right; if you don't get it, you get none right. The middle ground is sparsely populated. I had a college chemistry professor who said he tried to design his exams this way, so that he could look at the results and visually clump peaks into A, B, C territory.


Given the ABA provided mean and standard deviation, it's a simple matter to use a z table to check to see if your own score lines up with the percentile they report for you. Now god only knows what kind of statistical ****ery they conjured to fit raw correct/incorrect scores into their "scaled score" and odds are good that this statistical ****ery resulted in different questions carrying different weight ... but my %-ile was about 5% off what the z table predicted. So, we know this test didn't have a normal distribution.
 
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pgg said:
Exam scores almost never fall in a normal distribution.

Almost always skewed to the high side, with many outliers.

Questions are often highly correlated. For example, if you get #7 correct you're very likely to get #52 correct also, because they test the same or very similar information; if you miss #7 you'll probably miss #52 also.

Really difficult tests might have bimodal or multimodal distributions. If you get a concept, you get all the questions right; if you don't get it, you get none right. The middle ground is sparsely populated. I had a college chemistry professor who said he tried to design his exams this way, so that he could look at the results and visually clump peaks into A, B, C territory.


Given the ABA provided mean and standard deviation, it's a simple matter to use a z table to check to see if your own score lines up with the percentile they report for you. Now god only knows what kind of statistical ****ery they conjured to fit raw correct/incorrect scores into their "scaled score" and odds are good that this statistical ****ery resulted in different questions carrying different weight ... but my %-ile was about 5% off what the z table predicted. So, we know this test didn't have a normal distribution.
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Duh?

Point is that almost everyone will pass. Normal distribution just easier to understand, which is why I specified.

Money grab.

(My percentile is only 0.5% off the normal distribution fwiw)
 
DolphinVA said:
Duh?

Point is that almost everyone will pass. Normal distribution just easier to understand, which is why I specified.

Money grab.

(My percentile is only 0.5% off the normal distribution fwiw)
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The point is that your point is almost certainly wrong.

The pass rate won't be 97.7%. It'll be high, but substantially less than that.


And I think the existence of the test has more to do with the self-licking ice cream cone of academia, than the ABA accountants looking for revenue. Somewhere there's a bubble with some True Believers who genuinely thought we needed this test. And the venn diagram of that bubble and the ABA bubble overlapped enough to make it happen.

I get that your "normal distribution" and "money grab" comments are "easy to understand" but that doesn't mean they're correct.
 
With such a high pass rate, it feels like a circuitous route to grandfathering us all in to certification (while working out the kinks and padding the coffers simultaneously).
 
Can’t remember if I said this before, but I would postulate that those who took the exam this first go around are probably on the higher end of the test taking spectrum of cardiac anesthesiologists (who themselves are on the higher end of ALL anesthesiologist), so grading the exam could be very difficult and may be skewed towards the higher end.
 
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pgg said:
We don't know the pass rate yet.
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Of course we do!
The following was included in the reports. Assuming they don’t change them within the week, the rate is easy to derive.
 

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AK1010 said:
Of course we do!
The following was included in the reports. Assuming they don’t change them within the week, the rate is easy to derive.
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Again, you can't extrapolate pass rate from that information without knowing the distribution of scores, and you can't assume a normal distribution.
 
pgg said:
Again, you can't extrapolate pass rate from that information without knowing the distribution of scores, and you can't assume a normal distribution.
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No one has said we should assume it to be normal. Don't know what the hangup on this is.

But in almost any distribution, the population falling below 2 SDs from the mean will be very small. About two percent in a normal distribution (as an *example*). Can we calculate an exact number for our sample? No. But from the data we have we can say:

Will more than 80% pass : almost definitely
Will more than 90% pass: very likely
Will more than 95% pass: probably
Will 98% pass: small possibility

Still good enough certainty to call "very high pass rate ". Let's move on.
 
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Passed as well. Nice to have this crap behind me.

As per this JCVA article I feel "personally fulfilled", now it's time for you to all recognize me professionally.

1000106861.png
 
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Well the good news is on the aba portal it shows you as being adult cardiac anesthesia certified as of 12/2/23. So no waiting for months for them to say that in fact we have met all requirements and are officially certified.

But a couple points about the jcva article

1.the information about the exam should have been on the aba website. Information about the amount of questions on the exam etc should not be only restricted to jcva subscribers. They should email a copy of that article to everyone who signs up or at least provide the citation if they are too cheap.

2. The abridged content outline in the article specifically mentions statistics, which is not mentioned on the original outline. That info would have helped a lot in preparation.

3. They discuss how there would be some echo images on the boards. This was not obvious. Even some of the review modules stated that there would be no tee on the exam. The images were easy enough that I don't think there were too many problems but again this should have been made clear

4. I find it funny that the citation for the benefits of board certification links to the abms website, which is hardly a bias free source. There were few if any citations on the abms website anyway.
 
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I've had a look at the data and thought others may find it interesting:
1,135 people attempted the exam this year
1,094 people successfully passed (96.4% pass rate)

Nice new income source for the ABA.
 
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DolphinVA said:
I've had a look at the data and thought others may find it interesting:
1,135 people attempted the exam this year
1,094 people successfully passed (96.4% pass rate)

Nice new income source for the ABA.
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I feel bad for those 41 people that have to pay $1800 again next year...
 
instrumentrearwindow said:
Well the good news is on the aba portal it shows you as being adult cardiac anesthesia certified as of 12/2/23. So no waiting for months for them to say that in fact we have met all requirements and are officially certified.

But a couple points about the jcva article

1.the information about the exam should have been on the aba website. Information about the amount of questions on the exam etc should not be only restricted to jcva subscribers. They should email a copy of that article to everyone who signs up or at least provide the citation if they are too cheap.

2. The abridged content outline in the article specifically mentions statistics, which is not mentioned on the original outline. That info would have helped a lot in preparation.

3. They discuss how there would be some echo images on the boards. This was not obvious. Even some of the review modules stated that there would be no tee on the exam. The images were easy enough that I don't think there were too many problems but again this should have been made clear

4. I find it funny that the citation for the benefits of board certification links to the abms website, which is hardly a bias free source. There were few if any citations on the abms website anyway.
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Like you and the other poster above, I found this article after I had already taken the exam. I was very frustrated that simple things from the article (test length, format) weren't made truly public. I sent my opinions to the SCA, but probably ended nowhere.

If you really want an interesting topic, look into the authors of that article. Then look into who led the effort for the SCA ARC review course. Then look into the"research" articles keeping these people alive in academia, who's posting in their comment sections and recommending them on LinkedIn and citing their papers. It's the same small group. And while they may be "experts" in education (whatever that means), I'm not convinced they know much adult cardiac, and they certainly have failed at project management.
 
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DolphinVA said:
If you really want an interesting topic, look into the authors of that article. Then look into who led the effort for the SCA ARC review course. Then look into the"research" articles keeping these people alive in academia, who's posting in their comment sections and recommending them on LinkedIn and citing their papers. It's the same small group. And while they may be "experts" in education (whatever that means), I'm not convinced they know much adult cardiac, and they certainly have failed at project management.
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Yes - is clear that very, very few people actually wanted this test or felt it was needed. There's a small, inbred group of academicians living in a bubble and probably not actually doing much clinical anesthesia, that conjured this thing into existence.
 
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DolphinVA said:
I've had a look at the data and thought others may find it interesting:
1,135 people attempted the exam this year
1,094 people successfully passed (96.4% pass rate)

Nice new income source for the ABA.
Click to expand...

That's interesting, is that info publically available or is that insider info? Wonder how that number will change over the years - did a majority of cardiac anesthesiologists who would have taken the exam ever take it this year, or will more people jump in to take it in subsequent years?
 
instrumentrearwindow said:
That's interesting, is that info publically available or is that insider info? Wonder how that number will change over the years - did a majority of cardiac anesthesiologists who would have taken the exam ever take it this year, or will more people jump in to take it in subsequent years?
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It's public, just takes some persistence to collect.

Since I used brute force, the number that passed may actually be higher, but I felt like I reached the point of diminishing returns.

Wanted to keep ABA honest, as they are already socializing a "90%" pass rate from inside.

Subsequent years will be harder to verify this way, bc each new list will have to be cross reference with the year(s) before. Obviously everyone I found this year can only have taken it this past December.

Will be interesting to see how my numbers compare with their inevitable publication of "Results of first administration of ACA Exam" paper!
 
I wonder how many will take the test in subsequent years. 1100 is a surprisingly large number. Some 50,000 anesthesiologists in the US, how many identify as Cardiac strongly enough to get certified?

Approx 200 total fellowship spots each year, assume most of those grads will take it. But as mentioned, I think spots will go unfilled with current market
 
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DolphinVA said:
It's public, just takes some persistence to collect.

Since I used brute force, the number that passed may actually be higher, but I felt like I reached the point of diminishing returns.

Wanted to keep ABA honest, as they are already socializing a "90%" pass rate from inside.

Subsequent years will be harder to verify this way, bc each new list will have to be cross reference with the year(s) before. Obviously everyone I found this year can only have taken it this past December.

Will be interesting to see how my numbers compare with their inevitable publication of "Results of first administration of ACA Exam" paper!
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Interesting. I get how one can find the number of passers by doing searches on the physician directory, limited to people with active cardiac certification. But how would you get the total number of test-takers/number of failers? Seems like you would have to do a very broad search on the aba physician directory and go through each result independently for "In the Cardiac examination system" because using the certification field in advanced search only restricts it to people who actually got certified. Not that it matters, just curious.
 
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Bertelman said:
I wonder how many will take the test in subsequent years. 1100 is a surprisingly large number. Some 50,000 anesthesiologists in the US, how many identify as Cardiac strongly enough to get certified?

Approx 200 total fellowship spots each year, assume most of those grads will take it. But as mentioned, I think spots will go unfilled with current market
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After talking with a few friends currently in ACTA fellowships, I'm not sure they have all been convinced that it is worth taking the test. No jobs are requiring certification, most fellows don't have $1800 to throw away, no one wants to sign up for more MOCA, and they will remain "board eligible" for life by way of completing an accredited fellowship allowing them to take the test whenever they wish in the future.
 
DG51 said:
After talking with a few friends currently in ACTA fellowships, I'm not sure they have all been convinced that it is worth taking the test. No jobs are requiring certification, most fellows don't have $1800 to throw away, no one wants to sign up for more MOCA, and they will remain "board eligible" for life by way of completing an accredited fellowship allowing them to take the test whenever they wish in the future.
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Nothing wrong in any of your thoughts. Except at that stage of life, test-taking skills are probably going to be at their highest. I'm a few years out, but my colleagues who were a decade or more out, were all complaining of trying to get back their test-taking groove. Granted, a few years out, $1800 as much it is, is less than the daily swing of my investment portfolio's.
 
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DG51 said:
After talking with a few friends currently in ACTA fellowships, I'm not sure they have all been convinced that it is worth taking the test. No jobs are requiring certification, most fellows don't have $1800 to throw away, no one wants to sign up for more MOCA, and they will remain "board eligible" for life by way of completing an accredited fellowship allowing them to take the test whenever they wish in the future.
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For what it's worth, my employer paid for the registration fee.
 
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