A Decade of Work-hour Restrictions: Increasing Pass Rate Trends on the American Board of Urology Qualifying Examination

摘要

The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) implemented the residency duty-hour standards in 2003. Although not the primary goal of implementation, it was believed that duty-hour limitations would also enhance the quality of resident education. There is a relative paucity of data evaluating education outcomes in urologic surgery. There were no significant linear trends since 2003 on the American Board of Urology (ABU) Qualifying Examination (QE) and Certifying Examination (CE) in a recent study; however, there was evidence that the overall pass rates since 2003 were higher than before 2003. The purpose of this study is to critically evaluate the nature of the ABU QE and CE with regard to pass rates surrounding 2003, hypothesizing that pass rates on the ABU QE and CE have increased since the institution of the ACGME duty-hour standards. This was a retrospective study from 1994 to 2013. The data for outcomes on the ABU QE and CE were obtained directly from the American Board of Urology web site with appropriate permission. The primary analysis of this study involved performing segmented regression of examination pass rates over time surrounding 2003. All statistical tests were performed with Stata 13 statistical software (StataCorp, College Station, TX) using an a 4 0.05. On the ABU QE, the overall pass rate was 5412 of 6379 (84.8%). The pass rate before 2003 was 2782 of 3447 (80.7%) and the pass rate after 2003 was 2630 of 2932 (89.7%) (P < 0.001). On the ABU CE, the overall pass rate was 5037 of 5775 (87.2%). The pass rate before 2003 was 2610 of 3137 (83.2%) and the pass rate after 2003 was 2427 of 2638 (92.0%) (P < 0.001).