Dermatology Certification Examination Criticized

Dr. Douglas A. Perednia authored an article in American Thinker, a national discussion forum, about specialty certification examinations, using examples from dermatology (http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/03/medical_specialty_certification_exams_the_real_scandal.html). He wrote, “…endless layers of deliberately esoteric tests and certifications does nothing to improve patient safety or well-being…” A graph of a normal distribution for certification examination scores based on 300 questions, along with the altered distribution caused by recycling old test questions, is of interest in this article. According to his figure, if old test questions are not re-used for the test, a passing score would be 108/300. However, if questions are re-used and 90% of test takers know the answers to the previously used questions, a score over 156 is needed to avoid the 10% failure cutoff. Comments from readers are welcome on this website.