Applications and a finalized Case List are due by August 15 for the following year’s examination.
There is an application fee of $975 and an examination fee of $1350.
The candidate is to collect all consecutive operative cases, including same-day-surgery, for which the Candidate was the primary operating surgeon for six consecutive months beginning January 1 of the year prior to the examination.
ABOS Oral Examiners use the Scoring Rubric to judge each case.
For purposes of the ABOS Oral Examination, the primary surgeon is the responsible surgeon for the key and critical portions of the procedure. It is recognized that certain complex, multidisciplinary procedures lend themselves to multiple different procedures on different regions of the body. Under these circumstances, there may be more than one primary surgeon participating during an operation.
If the Candidate is away from their practice for 14 or more consecutive days during the case collection period for any reason, the starting point for the collection period must be backed up from January 1 to December 1. If the candidate is not engaged in active surgical practice for more than 30 consecutive days during the collection period, please contact the ABOS office.
If a Part II Candidate changes practice location or association or acquires new hospital staff privileges or affiliations within the immediate seventeen (17) month period, new information will be required to be submitted by the applicant, and there is a chance the Credentials Committee will defer that individual for one year in order to obtain more information about the Candidate’s practice situation and to let that situation stabilize.
The candidate has five years to take and pass the ABOS Part II Oral Examination, excluding fellowship, before he or she must retake and pass the ABOS Part I Examination.
Patient Reported Outcomes (PROs) are outcome measures that are directly reported by the patient to help better understand a treatment’s efficacy. PROs have been used at many facilities to assist surgeons in evaluating their practices. The ABOS has begun using PROs to assist in the Certification processes. Collecting PROs will also contribute to a surgeon’s continual practice improvement. For more information, visit this page.
The ABOS has several videos that can help you prepare.
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