Oral Exam: Overview
Preferred Practice Patterns (PPPs) are designed to identify characteristics and components of quality eye care. Developed by a panel of experts and based on the best available scientific data, PPPs provide guidance for the pattern of practice, not for the care of a particular individual. To ensure all PPPs are current, each is valid for five years from the date of issue unless superseded by a revision.
The oral exam will be conducted in a manner that represents that oral portion of the Board Certification process. The exam is Pass/Fail and will cover all the Preferred Practice Patterns.
Examiners will look to ensure each resident demonstrates an adequate ability to interview, examine, and manage each applicable condition as what is expected for the postgraduate year of the resident. For example, third year residents should be able to discuss surgical decision-making that is applicable the topic covered.
The oral examination is a timed examination and requires residents to “care for” a series of patients. Six separate examinations are given by 20-minute appointments within a 2-hour period allowing multiple examiners to assess the candidate’s patient care ability. The pooled group of examiners, referred to as a panel, which will decide the final grade.
The oral examination includes clinical scenarios representative of developmental, dystrophic, degenerative, inflammatory, infectious, toxic, traumatic, neoplastic, and vascular diseases affecting the eye and its surrounding structures. The oral examination is designed to simulate how candidates care for patients in a clinical setting. Candidates are assessed with regard to their ability to incorporate the cognitive knowledge demonstrated in the OKAP with judgment on caring for a patient. A candidate is presented with a series of props, each of which represents one patient or clinical situation, and is asked to identify how he/she would care for that patient. The examiner assesses a candidate’s ability to demonstrate patient care skills in the following areas:
- Data Acquisition: Recognition by the candidate of depicted abnormalities and diseases that affect the eye, ocular adnexa and the visual pathways. Candidates will be asked for historical information and examination data that might be obtained on a patient with a particular condition depicted or described.
- Diagnosis: The ability of candidates to synthesize historical and physical evaluation information, along with the appropriate laboratory data to arrive at correct diagnoses and differential diagnoses.
- Treatment: Candidates will be expected to provide a reasonable and appropriate plan for medical and/or surgical management of patients with the conditions depicted or described and be able to discuss the prognosis and/or therapeutic complications for the particular condition.
For those residents that fail the entire oral examination, a remediation program will be instituted to further educate the resident. A resident that does satisfactory meet the remediation requirements will be considered for academic warning or academic probation as warranted that will also consider the residents progress in all other clinical and didactic matters of the program.