Congrats to all who passed... keep studying whether you did well or poorly or mediocre.
If you did worse than expected or desired, talk to co-residents who did well or director or attendings who are ABFAS and see what to read.*
Then put in the time and read that stuff, practice questions, read more.**
*easy part
**hard part
The exams are very passable.
@Retrograde_Nail is correct. Some programs have basically 100% pass while others are low or almost zero. It's no coincidence. I've failed exams, everyone has... you can pass the next time around if you work harder. Learn the test formats better, find better resources... but mainly put in the time and work. Not everyone does.
I went through everything to get my abfas certification, and now it really isn't financially worth it to do much surgery. I can do much better in the office. I guess if I did a lot of surgery it would pay off, but most of what I see does not need to be out of office surgical. Time spent going to hospital, then the headaches of care during the global, worrying about patient compliance, liability, etc. The reimbursement doesn't match the work.
I would tend to agree, but it is good to be able to offer all F&A services - at least diagnostic, if not also surgical.
It is VERY good for the patients to be able to recognize the pathology and know what needs surgery and what doesn't. That's all ABFAS (didactic and CBPS) is: testing that book knowledge, which every DPM should theoretically have.*
*this assumes our residencies are good and standarized (not true)
...but yeah, at the end of the day, you can make a fine living in PP just doing ingrowns, warts, RFC, DME and PT for non-op fractures, etc.
That said, PCPs probably don't want to send me heel pain but not ankle instability, Peds doesn't want to send ingrowns but not flatfoot s/p clubfoot, hospitalist doesn't want a DPM for nail care but not osteomyelitis, ER shouldn't have to remember I do forefoot fractures but not rearfoot, etc. You are already a specialist; it usually pays to just be one-stop F&A care.
There are definitely pathologies I'd like to get rid of (alcoholic trauma pts... and pretty much all wound/amp/Charcot), and that's moreso because they're annoying or low reimburse than they're difficult. If I did decline them (or didn't know the surgery and sent that out), I wonder if I'd have half the refer sources which. They like that they can send me anything and it gets handled well (99% by me), and those refer relationships are the lifeblood of PP - or any practice.
Podiatry missed the boat badly on having all of us being general podiatry and just some being high volume + competency surgeons (dent model).