The Part 3 portion of the Maintenance of Certification is the written exam. This is the one that is ruffling so many feathers. Why? Because virtually everyone in clinical practice has to do it. The only exempt obgyns are those, who graduated prior to 1986 and are thus ‘grandfathered-in’.
Most have not taken a written exam for at least 10-15 year, and since this exam has never been given before, no one is sure what to expect. As if this is not bad enough, we are obliged to get a passing grade failing which, we will (at least temporarily) lose our board certification status and our membership as a fellow of ACOG! Clearly, this is serious business!!
Although no one knows precisely what to expect in the exam, there are some basic principles we can use to guide ourselves as we prepare for this exam (which will first be taken in 2012).
1) ABOG has already stated that it will expect physicians to:
a. incorporate ‘new information obtained by their participation in the MOC Part 2 process’.
b. Have ‘retained and are currently employing basic information learned during their training’
2) It seems reasonable to expect that it will probe the candidates understanding of routine standard of care
3) It seems reasonable that will have a reasonably high pass rate, since there is a potential to cause nationwide havoc in the provision of OBGYN services, if a significant percentage find themselves losing their board certification status!
At the end of the day, many OBGYNs will probably find themselves going to a refresher review course, or one that specifically attempts to prepare them for this specific exam.
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