Pass rate for OTO written board exam

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Moola

Moola

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What is the pass rate for the OTO written boards? Taking mine this Fri. Just curious
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I've heard around 80% pass rate but that is the old system where written and orals were combined for one score.
 
Glad I'm not the only one wondering that at this point. I think I'm going to be in good shape but you never really know until the score comes back.
 
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I've generally heard that almost everyone passes (>95% pass rate), particularly among recent US residency grads.
 
The most recent pass rate of which I'm aware (2010) for combined written and oral according to a friend who is on the board was 86% for first time test takers, all comers--not distinguishing US grads from others. The fail rate was significantly higher for written than it was for orals. In other words, if you pass the written, it's much less likely you will fail the orals.
 
resxn said:
The most recent pass rate of which I'm aware (2010) for combined written and oral according to a friend who is on the board was 86% for first time test takers, all comers--not distinguishing US grads from others. The fail rate was significantly higher for written than it was for orals. In other words, if you pass the written, it's much less likely you will fail the orals.
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Interesting, that's lower than I had heard, though my sources were just other residents and not anybody on the board.

The written board exam was very similar to the inservice exam in my opinion, so if you generally performed higher than the 25th percentile on your inservice, you should be in good shape for the board exam.

I was part of the last lucky cohort to take the written and orals the same weekend, so I got the enjoyment of trying to figure out blurry black and white pictures and CT images from 1980. Hopefully the new computerized version will have higher quality images...
 
The next few days of preparation should be fun. You can't learn a specialty in a week, but there always seems to be a lot of minutia that needs to be reviewed at the end.

Wishing all my fellow test takers good luck on Friday!
 
What % of ppl are second timers or foreign grads.
 
Stop studying. The written test is straight-up stupid. Just stupid and you really can't prepare for it.

If you feel like you must keep cramming then study allergy and sleep apnea crap. Things like cancer, peds, sinus, voice, ears and plastics don't seem to be very important to the exam writers.
 
Fah-Q said:
Stop studying. The written test is straight-up stupid. Just stupid and you really can't prepare for it.

If you feel like you must keep cramming then study allergy and sleep apnea crap. Things like cancer, peds, sinus, voice, ears and plastics don't seem to be very important to the exam writers.
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Agree completely with this. The test is a mix of questions that you already know without studying (since you just spent 4 years learning ENT every day) and questions that are so random/esoteric that you really can't prepare for them. There's really not a lot of "in between" questions. I remember saying right after the test that all my studying maybe made the difference on getting an extra 5 questions right over no studying at all.

There will be some allergy and sleep questions on there that are probably worth studying for.
 
OtoHNS said:
Agree completely with this. The test is a mix of questions that you already know without studying (since you just spent 4 years learning ENT every day) and questions that are so random/esoteric that you really can't prepare for them. There's really not a lot of "in between" questions. I remember saying right after the test that all my studying maybe made the difference on getting an extra 5 questions right over no studying at all.

There will be some allergy and sleep questions on there that are probably worth studying for.
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Sounds a lot like the In-Service to me. I never really felt like a ton more studying would have mattered.

Will see in a few days :)
 
Let the games begin. Good luck to all.
Moola
 
Well. It's done. Cross fingers for the next two months :). I think it was fine but with 1/3 experimental questions it's hard to really know.
 
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Anyone care to say much about the oral boards? I made it through the written. I am curious how detailed these scenarios will be. Got about three weeks until D Day but the weather has turned and I'm more interested in golf than the glottis.
 
Pir8DeacDoc said:
Anyone care to say much about the oral boards? I made it through the written. I am curious how detailed these scenarios will be. Got about three weeks until D Day but the weather has turned and I'm more interested in golf than the glottis.
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Don't sweat it too much. The cases were mostly very straightforward and the examiners are not out to trick you. The most likely section to have a zebra case is ironically general ENT, since it covers the whole specialty apart from H+N, FP, and otology. Each section has 3-4 cases that you discuss, so the harder ones usually get balanced out by some easier ones.
 
OtoHNS said:
Don't sweat it too much. The cases were mostly very straightforward and the examiners are not out to trick you. The most likely section to have a zebra case is ironically general ENT, since it covers the whole specialty apart from H+N, FP, and otology. Each section has 3-4 cases that you discuss, so the harder ones usually get balanced out by some easier ones.
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Agree. Unless you have serious issues talking, the orals are a piece of cake compared to the written. If you're safe with the patient, you will be fine. Those that fail the orals are people who get so far off track from the correct diagnosis that they end up doing something horrible to the patient and show they could be dangerous in practice.

One example (not from a real case as far as I know), performing total laryngectomy and chemorads for a saccular cyst.

However, I did hear about someone who looked at the path from their parotidectomy and thought they had high grade mucepidermoid instead of a Warthin's and ended up doing a MRND and chemorads. They failed, but it's not from this one case. You can't fail the orals blowing one case in one section. This was probably part of several bad moves they made.
 
I don't think I will get that far off base. The one thing in that scenario that worries me is my pathology skills. Not a strong suit. I had planned to review basic salivary gland path and then BCC and SCC. Not too much else pops up in the H&N. Maybe schwannoma.
 
Pir8DeacDoc said:
I don't think I will get that far off base. The one thing in that scenario that worries me is my pathology skills. Not a strong suit. I had planned to review basic salivary gland path and then BCC and SCC. Not too much else pops up in the H&N. Maybe schwannoma.
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No one else knows jack **** about pathology either. I think I had an FNA slide in one of my cases for which my answer was "I have no idea what that is, I would consult a pathologist." I still passed. There were maybe 3 or 4 path slides to look at in the whole of my oral board exam.

They'll always tell you what the path diagnosis is, so don't worry about being forced to base your workup and treatment on whatever you think it might be.

It seems rather silly to test pathology anyway since anything we excise from someone in real life gets reviewed by a pathologist.
 
OtoHNS said:
No one else knows jack **** about pathology either. I think I had an FNA slide in one of my cases for which my answer was "I have no idea what that is, I would consult a pathologist." I still passed. There were maybe 3 or 4 path slides to look at in the whole of my oral board exam.

They'll always tell you what the path diagnosis is, so don't worry about being forced to base your workup and treatment on whatever you think it might be.

It seems rather silly to test pathology anyway since anything we excise from someone in real life gets reviewed by a pathologist.
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Ok that's good then. Makes me feel a lot better. I agree that the testing of pathology seems silly..I know why we have to be good at radiology because we read scans with a different angle than radiologists, but path makes no sense.
 
OtoHNS said:
No one else knows jack **** about pathology either. I think I had an FNA slide in one of my cases for which my answer was "I have no idea what that is, I would consult a pathologist." I still passed. There were maybe 3 or 4 path slides to look at in the whole of my oral board exam.

They'll always tell you what the path diagnosis is, so don't worry about being forced to base your workup and treatment on whatever you think it might be.

It seems rather silly to test pathology anyway since anything we excise from someone in real life gets reviewed by a pathologist.
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In keeping with the integrity of the test which I took a long time ago, let's assume this is hypothetical. I had 4 path slides. The hardest was on plastics and I had to choose between an hemangioma vs an hemangiopericytoma on a 7yo's nose. I can't remember which I guessed and the guy said it didn't matter, the fact that I was trying to guess between those two was so good, he couldn't care less if I got the right one. I know they're not supposed to say anything, but he was cool and did.
 
Nothing new here to add. The hardest part about the oral boards is conditioning yourself not to get all worked up about them.

Agree that the hardest section is the path slides. Mine were skin cancers.

Other than that, they were all straight forward and the examiners were neutral to friendly in behavior.

In the end when discussing with my cohort, we all said the same things with sight variation and lo and behold we all passed.

Sent via Tapatalk.
 
Just wanted to share that I passed! Nice to be done with formal testing for 10 years.
 
Just joined this board. Just finished residency. So now need to study for written boards - sept 20th. Was wondering if it is just like inservice?
What materials do you recommend for prep.
I was going to go with KJ Lee. Is that enough? what would you supplement with?

Thanks
 
Sinusplumber said:
Just joined this board. Just finished residency. So now need to study for written boards - sept 20th. Was wondering if it is just like inservice?
What materials do you recommend for prep.
I was going to go with KJ Lee. Is that enough? what would you supplement with?

Thanks
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It's pretty similar to the inservice: i.e. a mix of questions you know the answer to without studying and questions on ridiculous minutiae that hardly anyone knows the answer to.

I used Pasha, but KJ would probably be good as well.
 
I agree overall. I felt like it was more fair and the questions more reasonable than in service. I didn't feel like I was searching the question to figure out what they wanted. As mentioned above some were easy and others quite detailed.
I used Pasha. Lange. And supplemented with Baileys in areas I'm known to be weak in. I think I worked at it for about 6 weeks (pretty serious reading) Orals I did 3-4 weeks.

Good luck. Most folks pass, which is reassuring.
 
Thanks,

Now its learning to function in private practice and motivate myself to study.
 
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