I have literally no association with the ABR, but since they’ve been gradually publishing more info about the new Oral Boards (coming to a computer near you in 2028) and not everyone reads The Beam newsletter religiously as I do, I thought I’d share the goods in one spot here as well. Here’s what’s available so far:
1. Written Sample Case content, which walks you through a couple cases in each subspecialty, what you’re supposed to get from the presentation images, differentials, further imaging requests, and key features. Despite being written, this is very helpful.
2. 46 min “simulation” video (where an experienced radiologist playacts being an examinee).
3. A logistics guide PDF (no, you won’t be able to have a stand-in take the exam for you).
4. An FAQ, of course. One interesting tidbit: all MRI sequences will be labelled. They say:
The ABR Image Quality Committee and the Board of Trustees think that having candidates spend exam time identifying sequences would not add value to the exam experience. The rare exception might be a case where recognizing the specific sequence is the concept being tested (e.g., in-phase vs out-of-phase imaging in the abdomen, or “silicone-only” image on a breast implant study).
Something tells me there will be rare exceptions? I would also be totally unsurprised if nucs studies are still presented as unknowns, even though that would also never happen in real life, but we’ll see.
5. The usual, generally unhelpful “study guide” (which lists the exam content including such profound hints as “pancreas” and “normal variants”)
6. A Scoring explanation:
Performance on an individual case is scored as 68, 69, 70, 71, or 72. Although a candidate does not need to pass every case to pass the category, the average of the case scores must equal or exceed 70 to pass the category. Hence, a candidate who is shown five cases and receives scores of 69, 70, 70, 70, and 71 would pass because the average of those scores is 70.
Those numbers (68-72) correspond to absolutely unsatisfactory, marginally unsatisfactory, satisfactory, good, and outstanding, respectively. In response to the scoring guide, I did reach out to the ABR to ask why the oral exam would be graded so…distinctively, instead of, say, 1-5 or some other more typical scale.
The answer:
First, “70” is often (but not universally) used as a passing threshold for high school and college exams, so it has an intuitive feel for a pass-fail test that is intended to measure competency rather than relative performance such as “excellence” or “perfection.”
Second, a 3 is “200%” better than a 1 (i.e. proportionally “large”). On the other end of the scale, a score of 5 on a case could be incorrectly understood to be “a lot better” than a 3. This is less an issue for a 70 vs a 72 although, as you imply, it’s mathematically the same result.
In re-introducing the DR Oral Exam, we’re sticking with the past model to avoid making too many changes as once, and to parallel the RO, MP, and IR scoring that has been in continuous use. All that said, I think we will consider going with the simpler version of 1-5 at some point in the future.
In other news, what’s old is new again.