Question about child board and adult boards?

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ara96

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Hi guys,
Going to be applying for child this cycle. Quick question, do i have to finish my adult boards during the child psych residency? Or can I opt not to do the adult boards and just do the child boards when I'm done with fellowship?

Thanks

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do you have to finish child boards by the end of your fellowship? or can you do it after?
 
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um you cant do board exams until you've finished your fellowship o_O


Umm this is not entirely true. I have seen that people do the adult boards after their 1st year of fellowship (in their 2nd year of C&A fellowship).

Generally though is it expected to be finished with Adult boards by end of Fellowship? Is it a requirement?

Thanks
 
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Umm this is not entirely true. I have seen that people do the adult boards after their 1st year of fellowship (in their 2nd year of C&A fellowship).

Generally though is it expected to be finished with Adult boards by end of Fellowship? Is it a requirement?

Thanks
It would be a requirement to be eligible for the subspecialty boards.
 
At my program, you have to finish your Adult boards by the time you finish your fellowship. You also have to take the Child PRITE and the Adult PRITE. It's in your interest to finish your Adult boards as soon as you can anyways.

Also, if you are the type that struggles with standardized exams, I would advise against going into child directly. Rather, would advise you to finish your Adult residency and Boards. Then if you still have the energy, apply for Child.
 
Do you have to take the Adult boards and Child boards every 10 years to maintain board certification? For employment purposes, say if I am working an inpatient adult and child position, do I need to be board certified in both?

Thanks
 
Do you have to take the Adult boards and Child boards every 10 years to maintain board certification? For employment purposes, say if I am working an inpatient adult and child position, do I need to be board certified in both?

Thanks
I'll leave off the discussion of whether you *need* MOC, but one nice thing about recertification in a subspecialty is that you can apply to take a combined exam--and recertify both in a single exam.
 
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At my program, you have to finish your Adult boards by the time you finish your fellowship. You also have to take the Child PRITE and the Adult PRITE. It's in your interest to finish your Adult boards as soon as you can anyways.

Also, if you are the type that struggles with standardized exams, I would advise against going into child directly. Rather, would advise you to finish your Adult residency and Boards. Then if you still have the energy, apply for Child.

You should not make your decision about whether or not you want to do a fellowship based on the fact that you might have to take an extra exam.

No one can kick you out of residency because of not taking boards.
 
You should not make your decision about whether or not you want to do a fellowship based on the fact that you might have to take an extra exam.

No one can kick you out of residency because of not taking boards.


Boards are a small part of training. Don't worry about it until after you graduate.

You can't take any boards as a resident.
 
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Boards are a small part of training. Don't worry about it until after you graduate. I don't think you can even take Adult boards while u are in fellowship


Actually you are board eligible once you are pgy5 and there can sit and take your adult boards. You can only take your child boards after you had taken your adult boards.

So if you are fast tracking you can take your adult boards your second year of fellowship and your child boards after you have completed your fellowship.

If you are entering as a pgy5... You should have signed up when you were a pgy4 and take it doing during your first year of fellowship. You should be able to take child boards during your second year of your fellowship.
 
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Gosh I shouldn't write here when I'm at work. What I meant to say is that during residency you cannot, obviously, take your Adult Boards.

However, during your 5th year of training/2nd year of child fellowship, you are expected to take your Adult boards while the knowledge is still fresh. It makes sense, because after you finish child fellowship, a good majority of your work will be specific to C&A work.

But on to the bigger point, board exams are just another one of those things you have to do, just as USMLE, med school, etc. It's not fun, but it'll be over before you know it. To even think about not doing a fellowship because of an extra board exam is silly in my opinion.
 
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I have a question regarding completion requirements. Do C&A programs require that you pass the Adult Boards during September of your PGY 5 year in order to complete your training? I have not seen this requirement listed in sample contracts and since you don't need to be board certified to graduate residency, I would imagine that it would be your choice if you were to complete it or not. Say someone says they want more time to study and arent ready by September, can they delay it until after fellowship?

I can't see them withholding your Diploma from Fellowship because of this.
 
I have a question regarding completion requirements. Do C&A programs require that you pass the Adult Boards during September of your PGY 5 year in order to complete your training? I have not seen this requirement listed in sample contracts and since you don't need to be board certified to graduate residency, I would imagine that it would be your choice if you were to complete it or not. Say someone says they want more time to study and arent ready by September, can they delay it until after fellowship?

I can't see them withholding your Diploma from Fellowship because of this.

In my C&A fellowship, I was the only fellow that even took the adult exam during fellowship. Fellowship didn’t care.
 
Anyone did it this year? Any tricks to know if you passed? Any word on when it comes out?
 
Anyone did it this year? Any tricks to know if you passed? Any word on when it comes out?
No tricks to knowing before getting the actual results. Results should come out in the next 1 to 30 days.
 
In my C&A fellowship, I was the only fellow that even took the adult exam during fellowship. Fellowship didn’t care.

Thanks, if I do decide to delay boards, I'm glad to know that I'm not the only one. I would like time to study for this beast of an exam.
 
Since I've recently completed all of this board stuff, I will chime in. I did the integrated child fellowship (3+2). F1 year counted as PGY4, so F2 year I was eligible to take the adult boards. I took it, passed, then went on to complete fellowship. My fellowship program really bugged the hell out of me to register to take the child boards the September after graduating, but I was honestly sick of all that stuff for a bit. I knew I was leaving fellowship to go into a full-time child psych position, so I wasn't really worried about waiting. Plus I was graduating the program, so I didn't really care if they were upset about it.

I took the child boards this past September, just under 2.5 years after completing the fellowship. Being board certified in general psych is a prerequisite to taking the child boards. One is considered, "board eligible", for a certain number of years after completing all of the requirements to be such, and you can technically take the exam at any point in that timeframe. I don't remember exactly how long it is, but I think it's 7 years? 4 years? I don't remember.

I didn't find either the adult or the child boards particularly difficult, and I was able to pass without really studying for them. However, I have known I can do this type of thing since high school and that's been my MO my entire life. I thought both exams weren't very well written and the content did not seem to be on par with our level of training and education. Large portions of the child exam seemed to be undergraduate-level learning theory and research design type questions. There were so many questions involving rats.
 
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Since I've recently completed all of this board stuff, I will chime in. I did the integrated child fellowship (3+2). F1 year counted as PGY4, so F2 year I was eligible to take the adult boards. I took it, passed, then went on to complete fellowship. My fellowship program really bugged the hell out of me to register to take the child boards the September after graduating, but I was honestly sick of all that stuff for a bit. I knew I was leaving fellowship to go into a full-time child psych position, so I wasn't really worried about waiting. Plus I was graduating the program, so I didn't really care if they were upset about it.

I took the child boards this past September, just under 2.5 years after completing the fellowship. Being board certified in general psych is a prerequisite to taking the child boards. One is considered, "board eligible", for a certain number of years after completing all of the requirements to be such, and you can technically take the exam at any point in that timeframe. I don't remember exactly how long it is, but I think it's 7 years? 4 years? I don't remember.

I didn't find either the adult or the child boards particularly difficult, and I was able to pass without really studying for them. However, I have known I can do this type of thing since high school and that's been my MO my entire life. I thought both exams weren't very well written and the content did not seem to be on par with our level of training and education. Large portions of the child exam seemed to be undergraduate-level learning theory and research design type questions. There were so many questions involving rats.

Thanks for the insight..
 
It is to your advantage to finish the adult boards while you are in Fellowship. You will be Board Certified and will have more potential for moonlighting opportunities. The fellowship itself eats up one year of attending salary, so being board certified will allow you to bargain more for higher moonlighting pay.
 
Since I've recently completed all of this board stuff, I will chime in. I did the integrated child fellowship (3+2). F1 year counted as PGY4, so F2 year I was eligible to take the adult boards. I took it, passed, then went on to complete fellowship. My fellowship program really bugged the hell out of me to register to take the child boards the September after graduating, but I was honestly sick of all that stuff for a bit. I knew I was leaving fellowship to go into a full-time child psych position, so I wasn't really worried about waiting. Plus I was graduating the program, so I didn't really care if they were upset about it.

I took the child boards this past September, just under 2.5 years after completing the fellowship. Being board certified in general psych is a prerequisite to taking the child boards. One is considered, "board eligible", for a certain number of years after completing all of the requirements to be such, and you can technically take the exam at any point in that timeframe. I don't remember exactly how long it is, but I think it's 7 years? 4 years? I don't remember.

I didn't find either the adult or the child boards particularly difficult, and I was able to pass without really studying for them. However, I have known I can do this type of thing since high school and that's been my MO my entire life. I thought both exams weren't very well written and the content did not seem to be on par with our level of training and education. Large portions of the child exam seemed to be undergraduate-level learning theory and research design type questions. There were so many questions involving rats.

Question, when you are Board Eligible in F1 year, does your Child PD sign a form or something saying you can register for it? Or do I have to have my PD from my Adult Program sign it?

I remember one of my senior residents telling me that I should keep on top of it because he had not and had to pay a late registration fee to take the General Boards.
 
Question, when you are Board Eligible in F1 year, does your Child PD sign a form or something saying you can register for it? Or do I have to have my PD from my Adult Program sign it?

I remember one of my senior residents telling me that I should keep on top of it because he had not and had to pay a late registration fee to take the General Boards.

I believe the PD from the general program signed off on the form. It was pretty simple in my case, but I did both residency and fellowship at the same program. Yes, there is an absurd, "late registration", fee, and the timeline is pretty odd so it's easy to lose track of.

Try not to let your program create too much anxiety for you about the boards. They have their own reasons for getting people to take it early and pass, none of which have anything to do with you as a clinician, and unless there have been drastic changes in the 5 years or so since I took the adult boards, the exam has little to nothing to do with measuring your level of competence as a clinician.

Your hospital may have its own requirements and there are many variables to consider, so only you know your specific situation. My program required its second-year fellows to be part of the attending on call roster for the general program, and it's not usual for a hospital to require BC as a condition of privileges. In such an instance, I suppose one could avoid being the attending on call by simply not taking the exam, assuming one is alright with being, "that guy". I found it to be a pretty useful experience and was a welcome change after years as a resident. Imagine finally being able to not admit or discharge the next day that one patient everyone knew was FOS but the attendings just kept admitting anyways because it's the easiest thing to do at 2AM. Until you learn that sleep is really important and call and work hour restrictions don't apply to you as an attending. Then you become just like them...
 
Since I've recently completed all of this board stuff, I will chime in. I did the integrated child fellowship (3+2). F1 year counted as PGY4, so F2 year I was eligible to take the adult boards. I took it, passed, then went on to complete fellowship. My fellowship program really bugged the hell out of me to register to take the child boards the September after graduating, but I was honestly sick of all that stuff for a bit. I knew I was leaving fellowship to go into a full-time child psych position, so I wasn't really worried about waiting. Plus I was graduating the program, so I didn't really care if they were upset about it.

I took the child boards this past September, just under 2.5 years after completing the fellowship. Being board certified in general psych is a prerequisite to taking the child boards. One is considered, "board eligible", for a certain number of years after completing all of the requirements to be such, and you can technically take the exam at any point in that timeframe. I don't remember exactly how long it is, but I think it's 7 years? 4 years? I don't remember.

I didn't find either the adult or the child boards particularly difficult, and I was able to pass without really studying for them. However, I have known I can do this type of thing since high school and that's been my MO my entire life. I thought both exams weren't very well written and the content did not seem to be on par with our level of training and education. Large portions of the child exam seemed to be undergraduate-level learning theory and research design type questions. There were so many questions involving rats.

I agree, the boards seemed almost too easy after relatively minimal studying. For anyone whos passed the Steps (aka everyone taking this test) and was actually present during residency, I can't imagine problems passing. I however highly recommend taking them early. Once you are an attending the material on these tests is just going to get rustier and decay. If you can even devote a week to studying and were not in the bottom 10% on the PRITE, sign it up and get on with your life.
 
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Do you have to pass both the psychiatry and neurology to pass the exam? When it came to PRITE I had above average scores for psychiatry, but very low neurology scores. So wondering about how this would play out on the boards.
 
Not any more. You just have to have a passing score overall. It used to be that you had to pass the neuro and psych parts individually but now it’s just an aggregate
 
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Really great to know. Thanks!
 
once you are certified you can stop doing the general recertifications. If you do both, it's a 200 question test on a computer with 100 questions from each (very easy).
 
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