Does the Oral "Mock Board" Examination Still Have a Role as a Training Tool?

The American Board of Radiology has adopted a new standardized board examination and the traditional oral examination has been abandoned. Although many programs have changed their educational efforts to reflect the new test format, some faculty members and residents have expressed a desire to keep an oral examination as a component of education and evaluation in radiology residency programs.

An oral comprehensive examination including all the appropriate subspecialties was administered to each second year and third year resident in our training program by faculty members. Both the resident examinees and faculty examiners were surveyed after the examination to gauge the perceived value of the experience.

Residents were divided in their perceptions of the fairness and utility of an oral examination as a tool to aid in board preparation and as an assessment of their knowledge and communication skill. Faculty members were universal in their endorsement of the oral examination and suggested continued use of the technique.

Residents and faculty members have differing perceptions of an oral examination delivered during training to assess knowledge and communication skill. The value of an oral examination in providing actionable feedback to trainees and the possibility of detecting struggling residents made it useful in our training program, and it thus it has been implemented for future years. Whether resident performance measured by this technique is predictive of success on American Board of Radiology examinations remains unclear.