Future of Dermatology boards

[MedicalSport]

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From what I've heard, the current boards are heavy on irrelevant clinical medicine minutiae, testing for random genetic mutations and antibodies. I imagine this must make studying extremely discouraging and frustrating.

I heard future board exams in derm will cut away from that and make it more clinical based. Any truth to this, or just a rumor?

(As much as I love clinical dermatology, and the perks that come with it, sitting down memorizing random mutations that I will never use sounds extremely painful and depressing, and is heavily making me consider another field... where the studying is much more enjoyable)

 

[asmallchild]

From what I've heard, the current boards are heavy on irrelevant clinical medicine minutiae, testing for random genetic mutations and antibodies. I imagine this must make studying extremely discouraging and frustrating.

I heard future board exams in derm will cut away from that and make it more clinical based. Any truth to this, or just a rumor?

(As much as I love clinical dermatology, and the perks that come with it, sitting down memorizing random mutations that I will never use sounds extremely painful and depressing, and is heavily making me consider another field... where the studying is much more enjoyable)

They say that every year. They might make small improvements every year. But a lot of the boards is still going to be minutiae that you may not (probably will not) encounter in daily practice. At any rate, I don't think it makes a big difference. Would you really pass on studying those details in hopes that the boards won't feature those questions?

In terms of picking a different field because of this, I think it's both wise and silly.

I do think it makes a big difference if you can tolerate the material. If you like 2 fields equally, pick up a textbook, a journal, etc and sit down and see what you like to read about more. No matter what field you pick, if you are going to be any good at it, there's going to be some amount of didactic work involved. Derm just happens to be a little bit heavier in reading. If you really really don't like reading, dermatology residency is not going to be fun at all for you.

That being said, it's only 3 years. If you really want to do derm, it's worth sucking it up, getting through the reading material, and then you can mold your practice the way you see fit (until MOC recertification)

 

[MilkIsGood]

who knows what the future board exams will actually look like. my class will be the first to take them. but we will probably still need to know those details since the modules we take py3-4 are reflective of the material from the current boards.