ABPN Announces Timetable for Phasing out Oral Exam

The American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology (ABPN) has formalized a timetable for phasing out the oral segment of the board-certification examination in psychiatry.

The Part II (oral) psychiatry certification examination has been eliminated for residents who began training as a PGY-1 on July 1, 2007, or later, or as a PGY-2 on July 1, 2008, or later. Instead, these residents are required to take only a single computerized certification examination, which will be administered for the first time in 2011.

Residents who began training as a PGY-1 before July 1, 2007, or as a PGY-2 before July 1, 2008, must still pass both the Part I (computer-administered) and Part II (oral) examinations to become board certified.

Candidates who do not pass the Part I examination in 2013 or before or who do not complete the certification process by December 31, 2016, are required to submit documentation of satisfactory performance in the evaluation of clinical skills completed by the current director of a program accredited by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education. In addition, such candidates are required to pass the new computerized psychiatry certification examination.

The ABPN's establishment of a timetable follows a decision it made last summer to eliminate the oral examination (Psychiatric News, September 5, 2008).

That decision was a long time in the making. In an interview with Psychiatric News two years ago, when ABPN Director Larry Faulkner, M.D., assumed executive leadership of the board, he predicted that the psychiatry examination would in time be fully computerized. Neurology has already eliminated the oral component from its certification exam, as have many other specialties.

Elimination of the oral exam is part of a movement toward testing of“ core competencies” within residency training programs.

Faulkner noted that as part of the credentialing process for admission into the ABPN computerized certification examination, residents are required to complete satisfactorily at least three in-residency evaluations of three specific competencies.

Those competencies include forming an acceptable physician-patient relationship; conducting a psychiatric interview, including a mental status examination; and making an acceptable case presentation.

Information about the certification process and timetable is posted at<www.abpn.com>.▪