It's fairly difficult... whole day written exam when I took it 2013 or so (never worked there but held that license for ~10yrs before I let it expire).
Ppl from decent residencies have failed, ppl with jobs set up there have sweated it. It's basically a good bit harder than national pod boards or Abpm minimum competency boards... but probably not quite as hard as ABFAS written.
As you probably know, the residency programs in NC are pretty mid and there are a lot more DPMs there than years ago (many doing DM/wounds/forefoot as ortho is strong in NC). Their board exam is probably easier than it was years prior as many mediocre trained pods in groups there now (even 15yrs ago, DPMs were relatively unsaturated there... you'd get letters of job posts right when you passed licensing... not anymore).
The oral is just cases... classic stuff usually. You get 3 if I recall. It's normal workup stuff... all common cases/concepts to my recall. Not too hard... make a dx, classifications, pick a procedure, meds, etc. They're not trying to trick you... stuff you should expect from residency interviews basically. Everyone I know who has taken it passed, but they were mostly good students who did avg to great residencies.
You will pass, but just study the stuff you would for Abfas... PI manual, JFAS, classic texts, current articles/concepts. It's definitely not impossible. 👍
