2007 Internal Medicine In-Training Examination®

January 5, 2008

To all Internal Medicine residents -

The 2007 In-training Examination results are back!

As you recall, this is an important opportunity to gage your own medical knowledge and to develop learning plans for areas of deficiency throughout the rest of your training. It is also an important opportunity for the program to evaluate "holes" in the curriculum and to identify areas of improvement.

In order to fully understand your personal result report, please review the links below. You will find a guide to interpreting the performance report, the full outline of learning objectives tested (outlined by specialty topic and alpha-numeric code), and a recent article that allows us to better predict your eventual performance on the ABIM certifying exam based on your ITE score.

A few points—
Your report will outline your total percent correct and your percentile rank. Your percentile rank is what predictive models are based upon (as noted below). This is a comparison of your score to all trainees in your year of training who took the exam. Your report will then break down your percent correct and percentile rank for by specialty topic. Lastly, at the bottom of the report will be listed the alphanumeric codes to the specific learning objectives that you missed. You can use this to look at the exact topics missed by going to the full learning objectives outline posted on ERIC (as noted above).

Based on updated data, PGY2 residents scoring above the 23rd percentile have a 93% probability that they will ultimately pass the ABIM certifying examination. Individuals scoring below the 23rd percentile have a 65% chance of failing the examination. Numbers are similar for the PGY3 residents. The data on which this is based is outlined in an article by Babbot, et al.

Based on this data, all PGY2 and PGY3 residents scoring below the 30th percentile WILL BE REQUIRED to do the following:

1. Meet with either program director, Stephanie Call, or program manager, Meredith Bryk, within 45 days. It is your responsibility to initiate this meeting. Please call 828-9726.
2. Develop an individualized learning plan (during meeting above) with follow up in 90 days. This may include test-taking skill strategy development, curriculum changes, reading outlines, learning deficiency
   assessments, other plans.
3. Attend at least 80% board review sessions this spring (to be announced shortly by chiefs).

I will review overall program performance on the 2007 ITE at the housestaff meeting this Wednesday, January 9th.

Individual ITE Score Reports will be forwarded to you via email.

Please let me know if you have questions or concerns.

—Stephanie

2007 Internal Medicine In-Training Examination®

• Educational Objectives (pdf)
• Histograms—Program Average and Distribution by PGY Year (pdf)
• Performance Interpretation Guidelines (pdf)
• Babbott SF, et al.The predictive validity of the internal medicine in-training examination. Am J Med. 2007 Aug;120(8):735-40.