Failed peds boards on first attempt while in military fellowship?

[gtbenson75]

Does anyone on here know what happens if you are in an active duty pediatric subspecialty fellowship program and you fail the gen peds board exam on your first attempt?

For reference, I graduated from an active duty peds residency program this past June 2021, and I’m now 3 months in to a 3-year active duty fellowship program. In residency, I was on non-adverse, non-reportable program-level remediation for “failing” my in-training exam during my first 2 years of residency. My 3rd year of residency, I “passed” my in-training exam and did not require any further remediation.

I just took my gen peds board exam today. I went into the test anxious but feeling well-prepared and confident, and left the exam feeling less confident. I didn’t leave any questions unanswered, and I feel confident I knew the right answer on about 70-75% of the questions. As for the rest, I was able to narrow down to 2 choices with varying levels of confidence on about 20-25% of the questions, and for the remaining ~5% I had no idea and just had to make a best guess.

Probably not healthy to stress too much about it now since I won’t even know if I passed or failed until a couple of months from now. But I’m having some bad post-test anxiety right now, and I do know I’m at statistically higher risk to fail my first attempt after having “failed” 2 of my in-training exams in residency.

I just wanted to see if there is anyone on here who either had personal experience with failing gen peds boards on the first try out of residency while in an active duty fellowship program, or who knew what happened if this were the case, and who could give me some advice on what to expect if I were to find myself in that position.

Thanks!

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[Dr. Wexler]

Does anyone on here know what happens if you are in an active duty pediatric subspecialty fellowship program and you fail the gen peds board exam on your first attempt?

For reference, I graduated from an active duty peds residency program this past June 2021, and I’m now 3 months in to a 3-year active duty fellowship program. In residency, I was on non-adverse, non-reportable program-level remediation for “failing” my in-training exam during my first 2 years of residency. My 3rd year of residency, I “passed” my in-training exam and did not require any further remediation.

I just took my gen peds board exam today. I went into the test anxious but feeling well-prepared and confident, and left the exam feeling less confident. I didn’t leave any questions unanswered, and I feel confident I knew the right answer on about 70-75% of the questions. As for the rest, I was able to narrow down to 2 choices with varying levels of confidence on about 20-25% of the questions, and for the remaining ~5% I had no idea and just had to make a best guess.

Probably not healthy to stress too much about it now since I won’t even know if I passed or failed until a couple of months from now. But I’m having some bad post-test anxiety right now, and I do know I’m at statistically higher risk to fail my first attempt after having “failed” 2 of my in-training exams in residency.

I just wanted to see if there is anyone on here who either had personal experience with failing gen peds boards on the first try out of residency while in an active duty fellowship program, or who knew what happened if this were the case, and who could give me some advice on what to expect if I were to find myself in that position.

Thanks!

What branch?

 

[gtbenson75]

What branch?

Air Force

 

[Gastrapathy]

You haven’t failed yet. You probably passed. If you haven’t, you’ll just take them again.

 

[pgg]

Worst case is you take them again the next year, and miss out on a year of board certification special pay. No major career consequences, just a personal hassle. I know people who've failed multiple times before passing, and their lives have turned out fine.