What’s up with the new kids?

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urge

urge

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I have seen so many recent grads with no boards because “they forgot to sign up for them”.

Never heard of that ever happening until the last year or two. And now it’s the excuse everyone has.

It’s like nobody cares about anything anymore.
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urge said:
I have seen so many recent grads with no boards because “they forgot to sign up for them”.

Never heard of that ever happening until the last year or two. And now it’s the excuse everyone has.

It’s like nobody cares about anything anymore.
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One of my classmates went to sign up for oral boards a couple weeks after he was able and there were no slots available for the entire next year. He said screw it, I'll get to work and do it the next year.

The next year came and went and he's been busy working and spending time with his family. He got deployed for I believe 6 months last year. Here we are 3 years post residency and he's still not taken oral boards. I have no doubt he'll succeed. It just hasn't made it onto his list of priorities. (Incomprehensible to me!)
 
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I also know some people that took it and failed. Im sure some of them told their employers they just “forgot to register”. I don’t think the number of newly board certified diplomats are going down if it some people cannot register for the applied exam due to max capacity of the exam center.
 
Also, you can’t sign up for it unless you pass the advanced exam. The pass rate has been mid to high 80’s, so thats 10-15% of graduates that are not allowed to register for the applied exam until they retake it in the winter and pass.
 
I’m 2 years out if training. I remember going on the ABA website to sign up for oral boards a couple hours after advanced results got posted. There were only a handful of slots left for that cycle/year. I’m sure anyone who didn’t go on to sign up the very same day results were posted didn’t get a slot that year.

But saying they “forgot” isn’t the best way to describe it to a prospective employer. A less aloof sounding but still accurate description would be “I didn’t have a chance to sign up within a few hours of results being posted and by the time I got on the ABA website there were no slots left”.
 
Had two colleagues recently let go due to failure to obtain board certification. I believe one had tried and failed once or twice, but the other I don’t think even signed up for them ever. Never encountered this before in all my time here and it still boggles my mind.
 
Radar26 said:
I still can’t believe I took my boards over a zoom chat. I literally sat in my living room with a shirt and suit jacket on with cargo shorts and bare feet. Everyone’s got an oral boards story, I guess that one is mine…
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Nightmare scenario regarding oral boards via zoom.



Skip to about 4:40 if you don't want to hear about his educational background.
 
JiPo said:
Also, you can’t sign up for it unless you pass the advanced exam. The pass rate has been mid to high 80’s, so thats 10-15% of graduates that are not allowed to register for the applied exam until they retake it in the winter and pass.
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Has this number changed since they changed the format a few years ago I wonder? This number seems low from what I remember for the written boards.
 
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circleK said:
Had two colleagues recently let go due to failure to obtain board certification. I believe one had tried and failed once or twice, but the other I don’t think even signed up for them ever. Never encountered this before in all my time here and it still boggles my mind.
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How recently did they graduate? Once or twice? I thought you get three tries. Is this the written or oral part?
 
Beeftenderloin said:
I’m 2 years out if training. I remember going on the ABA website to sign up for oral boards a couple hours after advanced results got posted. There were only a handful of slots left for that cycle/year. I’m sure anyone who didn’t go on to sign up the very same day results were posted didn’t get a slot that year.

But saying they “forgot” isn’t the best way to describe it to a prospective employer. A less aloof sounding but still accurate description would be “I didn’t have a chance to sign up within a few hours of results being posted and by the time I got on the ABA website there were no slots left”.
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This isn’t anything new. Many of us went through this and many of us ended up taking it a year later. This is very common and Employers should know it takes sometimes a whole year to 16 or so months to get in.
 
amyl said:
You can fail the boards and just not report it?!? Act like you forgot to take it? I thought that was reportable?
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I don’t think that information is public. Any trainee in aba system will say “in process” or something like that, so it does not tell you where they are in the process or where they have failed, if they did.

Once they pass the applied exam, everyone can see that the status has changed to board certified.

Whether it is right thing to hide the fact that they failed is a different story, but at least, there is no way of confirming from what I understand.
 
So I was bored one day and typed in a bunch of my former senior residents and was surprised by how many are still not board certified. I’m talking about people that finished residency in ‘18 or so.

I presume they are still working.

I finished in ‘21 and looks like only 60% of my class is boarded as of now. I guess with the market a lot of employers just don’t care. I know with my group I couldn’t become a partner without board certification but maybe that’s not the norm.
 
Gator7 said:
So I was bored one day and typed in a bunch of my former senior residents and was surprised by how many are still not board certified. I’m talking about people that finished residency in ‘18 or so.

I presume they are still working.

I finished in ‘21 and looks like only 60% of my class is boarded as of now. I guess with the market a lot of employers just don’t care. I know with my group I couldn’t become a partner without board certification but maybe that’s not the norm.
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You are asking for trouble if you don't.
 
Gator7 said:
So I was bored one day and typed in a bunch of my former senior residents and was surprised by how many are still not board certified. I’m talking about people that finished residency in ‘18 or so.

I presume they are still working.

I finished in ‘21 and looks like only 60% of my class is boarded as of now. I guess with the market a lot of employers just don’t care. I know with my group I couldn’t become a partner without board certification but maybe that’s not the norm.
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Checked my class out of curiosity, graduated in 2018 and only one out of twelve of my fellow residents still isn't board certified. I can't find if they are still working or not.
 
TJRock said:
Nightmare scenario regarding oral boards via zoom.



Skip to about 4:40 if you don't want to hear about his educational background.
Click to expand...

lol, now that’s an oral boards story!


Although if you live in an area where power can go out so easy, you’d think you might invest in a generator. But I’ve never lived in that part of the country so I really don’t know.
 
Radar26 said:
I still can’t believe I took my boards over a zoom chat. I literally sat in my living room with a shirt and suit jacket on with cargo shorts and bare feet. Everyone’s got an oral boards story, I guess that one is mine…
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I don't see why that's not how it should be.

What's the point of flying over, taking two days out of your schedule to sit around in a hotel room then wake up at the crack of dawn for no reason to sit around at some circular tables in silence for an hour before the hotel breakfast opens just to be given no breakfast or coffee while they herd you onto buses like cattle.
 
GassYous said:
I don't see why that's not how it should be.

What's the point of flying over, taking two days out of your schedule to sit around in a hotel room then wake up at the crack of dawn for no reason to sit around at some circular tables in silence for an hour before the hotel breakfast opens just to be given no breakfast or coffee while they herd you onto buses like cattle.
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I think the stress of all of the above is part of the point, to be honest.

It’s meant to test your judgement under pressure; I think orals actually do a pretty good job at that.
 
amyl said:
You can fail the boards and just not report it?!? Act like you forgot to take it? I thought that was reportable?
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Are all of our class board certified?
Funny one of my classmates knew I was board certified before I was…..
 
Oral boards are way backed up. It might take years to clear the current backup. They are not even scheduling on a first come first served basis anymore. I don't envy the folks graduating now with oral exam and OSCE. But hey at least they didn't have take step 2 CS.


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GassYous said:
I don't see why that's not how it should be.

What's the point of flying over, taking two days out of your schedule to sit around in a hotel room then wake up at the crack of dawn for no reason to sit around at some circular tables in silence for an hour before the hotel breakfast opens just to be given no breakfast or coffee while they herd you onto buses like cattle.
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The point is that the ABA has to make the lease payments on that shiny stupid testing center they have.

And certain people need to pad their academic resumes - case in point, the new cardiac exam no one wanted and no one needed until those clowns conjured it.
 
urge said:
I have seen so many recent grads with no boards because “they forgot to sign up for them”.

Never heard of that ever happening until the last year or two. And now it’s the excuse everyone has.

It’s like nobody cares about anything anymore.
Click to expand...
Skibidi boards.
 
mmag said:
Oral boards are way backed up. It might take years to clear the current backup. They are not even scheduling on a first come first served basis anymore. I don't envy the folks graduating now with oral exam and OSCE. But hey at least they didn't have take step 2 CS.


View attachment 388594
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I'll be a board examiner to help with the backlog if they actually paid examiners appropriately and did everything remotely (like they should). Of course, that will never happen.
 
Why give corrupt old cronies $2000 for them to embezzle when the job market is such that you absolutely don’t need to?

ETA: am board certified, have a great job that doesn’t require it, nowhere else I would want to be cares about it either, regretting wasting money on it.
 
With all the CRNA encroachment and them taking ‘boards’, the least we can do is maintain board certification. Y’all complain about them taking over, and you lie down and roll over something as simple as our oral boards. Could you imagine if our boards were like some of the surgical boards, where you have to submit case logs and them argue why you did what you did for a certain case? Some people in our specialty, both young and old, are too damn soft.
 
The biggest problem I have with the oral boards is that when other specialties were having people take it over zoom the ABA was one of the last specialties to make it all over video chat. It was a big inconvenience for my colleges to have to request time off to fly in to take oral boards when they weren’t even sure it was going to happen.
 
GassYous said:
I don't see why that's not how it should be.

What's the point of flying over, taking two days out of your schedule to sit around in a hotel room then wake up at the crack of dawn for no reason to sit around at some circular tables in silence for an hour before the hotel breakfast opens just to be given no breakfast or coffee while they herd you onto buses like cattle.
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I was hungry? Wasn’t fed? And put on the bus? Well I guess the stress must be real because I forgot all these parts.
 
Last edited:
urge said:
I have seen so many recent grads with no boards because “they forgot to sign up for them”.

Never heard of that ever happening until the last year or two. And now it’s the excuse everyone has.

It’s like nobody cares about anything anymore.
Click to expand...

Okay so I was curious about if this was actually true. I couldn't find how many people took the boards directly, but the ABA puts out a running total each year of the number of of physicians who became board certified. So we can kinda guess. The numbers of new diplomats and the change per year are below. Maybe the class that just graduated is different, but for the most part it appears you have become "an old" and are just complaining about the new generation.


There were 1935 anesthesia residency spots last year. It looks like in 2023 87% of all anesthesiology residents became board certified, which since that is close to the pass rate is mostly everyone. The numbers for each year are:
2023: 67,806. (1693 for the year)
2022: 66,113. (1832 for the year)
2021: 64,281 (1490 per year)
2020: no data
2019: 61,300 (1677 per year)
2018: no data
2017: 57, 945
 
Coffee PRN said:
In all seriousness, does anyone know what the pay rate for being a board examiner is?
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"Reasonable travel and hotel expenses and we provide modest service and travel per diems." That's for the week in Raleigh. You don't get anything for the extra week spent grading 50 OSCEs, aside from 24hrs of category 2 CME. Do cat 2 CMEs even count for anything?
 
psychbender said:
"Reasonable travel and hotel expenses and we provide modest service and travel per diems." That's for the week in Raleigh. You don't get anything for the extra week spent grading 50 OSCEs, aside from 24hrs of category 2 CME. Do cat 2 CMEs even count for anything?
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Pretty sure it's <$500 a day. And you have to stay at their hotel for the whole week. I hear the food is nice, but it better be when you have to show up for 20-25 years straight.
 
The further out you go before taking them the harder it is to pass on first attempt. While time in the job will make you a better anesthesiologist, time removed from an environment where you’re getting regular didactics and board review sessions will put you at a great disadvantage on the day of the test. As an aside, if you have any attachment to/ warm feelings about program where you trained, lower percentage of board pass rates and lower rate of board certification after 7 years puts the program at risk for losing certification.
 
Dr. Rude said:
Historically, it has been a merit badge to be an examiner, an intellectually satisfying, educational activity, and an act of giving back to the profession. The badge is a little less shiny and the desire to give back to the profession among most of us has declined.
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They collect all that money from us year after year after year. And people put their egos before all that money? People are DUMB!!!
 
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