The Pediatric Boards Pass Rate Could be 100% This Year!
I Know You Don't Believe It, But It's TRUE!
The pediatric boards pass rate had been horrendous for years. BUT, after a very long time, the American Board of Pediatrics (ABP) finally decided to make some long-needed changes in 2012. In the prior years, your grade was essentially determined based on a curve. The curve was meant to ensure that 20-25% of first-time test takers failed the pediatric boards resulting in a pediatric board pass rate of about 75 – 80%. So, your chances of success were determined by the mix of your peers. If your peers were smarter than you, that meant you were more likely to fail!
The ABP's New Way of Grading
Now, they have a new way of grading the initial certification exam. They finally decided to pass you the same way you were graded in elementary school. If you get more than a certain number of questions correct, you pass! That's it! Based on my discussions with the American Board of Pediatrics, the number of questions you'll need to answer correctly during the test will be somewhere in the range of 70 to 75%. Pass rates increased over the following years until the pass rate in 2018 was a staggering 91%!
These changes had truly been a long time coming, but kudos to the American Board of Pediatrics (ABP) for finally making this change. Much of has to do with policy set forth by the American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS), but who cares about the politics as long as it's more FAIR and EASIER to pass, right?
About 50% of the PBR members come here looking for a solution because they have previously failed the pediatric board exam by using other study materials. It's been heartbreaking, but with these new changes I'm hopeful that we'll consistently see much higher pass rates for pediatricians going forward on the board exam, AND the phenomenon of MULTIPLE failures by the same pediatrician will be a thing of the past.
For now, if you make sure you're using the best pediatric board review book around and follow the instructions to the letter then you should do great!
