Summer’s the Time to Prepare for What’s Coming
By Desiree E. Morgan, MD, ABR Governor
2025;18(3):1
Summer is upon us, and it is a time when our family schedules tend to be more relaxed and easy. For anyone working in an academic medical center, though, we are anything but relaxed and easy, professionally speaking. This season marks the turnover of trainees and their advancement to the next level. As part of the readiness to greet the new academic year, we spend time looking under the hood, so to speak, at the educational program’s procedures and processes. To me, this issue of The Beam feels similar to that readiness renewal mode, and I hope you’ll enjoy reading about some of the ABR’s processes as you anticipate the approach of summer.
In this issue …
ABR Secretary-Treasurer Marina I. Feldman, MD, MBA, and ABR Executive Director Brent Wagner, MD, describe how the ABR Board of Governors fulfill their “duty of care” to serve as stewards of the fees collected that support board certification programs and processes.
ABR President Cheri L. Canon, MD, and ABR President-elect John A. Kaufman, MD, MS, describe the details of last month’s announcement that international medical graduates (IMGs) can now combine training from two institutions to fulfill the four years required for the IMG Alternate Pathway.
The ABR Associate Executive Directors and the Board of Trustees Chair discuss the roadmap the ABR used to successfully develop and implement a remote exam platform in response to the pandemic in 2020 and our continued commitment to maintaining the consistency, validity, and security of our exams while striving to improve the candidate experience.
ABR Associate Executive Director Mary S. Newell, MD; ABR Trustee Kate Maturen, MD, MS; and ABR Governors Desiree E. Morgan, MD, and Stephen F. Simoneaux, MD, answer common questions about the new DR Oral Exam.
ABR Associate Executive Director for Interventional Radiology James B. Spies, MD, MPH, explains how the International Medical Graduate (IMG) Alternate Pathway for IR/DR candidates differs from that for diagnostic radiology candidates, and describes the new two-year IR IMG pathway.
ABR Trustee Kalpana M. Kanal, PhD; ABR Associate Director of Psychometrics Ben Babcock, PhD; ABR Associate Executive Director for Medial Physics Geoffrey S. Ibbott, PhD; and ABR Board of Trustees Chair Matthew B. Podgorsak, PhD, present a subset of questions and answers from a recent presentation at the American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM) about Online Longitudinal Assessment (OLA) scoring.
Future diagnostic radiology resident Garrett Barfoot, MD, describes the wide range of emotions he experienced on Match Day this year.
Interventional radiologist Divya Kumari, MD, uses her experience teaching in a diagnostic radiology department and doing clinical work at a hospital with a diverse population to inform her question writing for ABR exams.
ABR Communications Manager Rodney Campbell spoke to radiation oncologist Jamie Cesaretti, MD, about the importance of optimism in his career and in his work as a long-time question writer and oral examiner for the ABR.
Continuing Certification Update
ABR Communications Director David Laszakovits, MBA, and ABR Associate Executive Director for Diagnostic Radiology Mary S. Newell, MD, describe the formative element of Online Longitudinal Assessment (OLA).
The ABR employs four experts from their fields to serve as extensions of Executive Director Brent Wagner, MD, MBA. These associate executive directors (AEDs), all of whom work part-time at the ABR, come from the four specialties that the organization certifies: diagnostic radiology (DR), interventional radiology/diagnostic radiology (IR/DR), medical physics (MP), and radiation oncology (RO).
Learn more about the AEDs and what they do by watching these videos.
DR: Mimi Newell, MD
IR/DR: James Spies, MD
MP: Geoffrey Ibbott, PhD
RO: Michael Yunes, MD
By Ben Babcock
When the ABR administers Initial Certification exams, some people pass and others don’t. How does the ABR decide where to draw the line between a passing and failing performance?
The answer is a psychometric process called standard setting. ABR Initial Certification exams use a criterion-referenced standard setting process (Angoff) that involves a volunteer panel of certified diplomates. Those subject matter experts (Angoff participants) make judgments about the difficulty level of questions on an exam to decide where the pass/fail point should be.
How does the process work? The Angoff participants first define what it means to be a qualified candidate by identifying the knowledge and skills of a candidate who would just barely pass the exam. The definition varies based on the specifics of the discipline, but it often includes statements like:
- Practices safely.
- Does well with typical cases.
- Can tell that something is wrong but may not know the precise reason why.
- May struggle with unusual cases or rare presentations.
- May not have great knowledge of cutting-edge equipment or techniques.
Most candidates for certification exceed those levels of ability, but the Angoff method attempts to quantify the dividing line between the qualified and not qualified examinees. After defining the qualified candidate, each Angoff participant takes the exam. Having to answer every question places them in the same proverbial seat as an exam candidate. After an Angoff participant has read and answered a question, they decide whether a qualified candidate would answer the question correctly.
When Angoff participants are finished with the first round of ratings, a psychometrician guides them through a second round that focuses on a group review of selected questions. These may be questions the participants wanted to discuss with the group. This discussion allows them to voice rationales for their ratings and consider alternative viewpoints. Participants then have the option to submit a new rating.
Once the Angoff participants are finished with the activity, ABR staff have the data they need to recommend a pass/fail point for the exam being evaluated. This process is how the ABR uses the judgment of certified diplomates to determine the knowledge required to pass an ABR Initial Certification exam.
It is ABR volunteers who drive the process and make it successful. The volunteers who participate in standard setting are critical to the process of creating a fair and valid exam. Thank you, volunteers! We could not do it without your expert judgments.
Ben is the associate director of psychometrics at the ABR.
