Physical Facility
The ABO is increasing the area of our leased space at AAO headquarters from 1,800 square feet to over 5,000 square feet to include administrative offices as well as examination rooms. We anticipate that, once completed, all future clinical examination will take place in St. Louis. We are doing this in order to accommodate the expected large increase in the number of orthodontists taking the clinical examination in the future.
ABO Clinical Examination
The ABO Clinical Exam was held February 19-26 with approximately 300 examinees scheduled. These large numbers required as many as four examinations per day utilizing the effort of 75 examiners. Both the ICE candidates (newly graduated orthodontists) and the Gateway candidates performed very well this year with a relatively high pass rate. The Board anticipates nearly 500 candidates to take the clinical examination in 2011.
ABO Written Examination
The 2010 ABO Written Examination will be conducted during the week of April 19-23 at Pearson-VUE Computer Centers across the United States and Canada. There are currently more than 375 examinees registered for that exam.
ICE (Initial Certification Examination)
The ABO is proposing a variation of the requirements for initial certification of newly graduated residents. A system of banking cases is being proposed. Residents will be able to present as few as three cases and as many as six cases at their initial examination session. Cases which pass the will be banked for the resident. The resident will then return with the balance of the required cases in order to complete the requirements. The ABO believes that this new concept of “banking” will level the playing field for all residents in orthodontic programs across the United States. The Board feels that this will eliminate the perceived advantage that three year programs have over the two year programs.
Monitoring ABO Certification as part of the Accreditation Process
The ABO is pleased with the decision of the Commission on Accreditation to require orthodontics programs to track the number of graduates who achieve Board certification as an outcomes assessment measure. The Board believes that this policy will encourage programs to train their residents to become Board Certification.
Respectfully Submitted,
Dr. Barry Briss
Director/Secretary-Treasurer