title: The ACGME Duty Hour Standards and Board Certification Examination Performance Trends in Surgical Specialties.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Duty hour limitations initiated by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) in 2003 could improve resident education in surgical specialties.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  The purpose of this study was to evaluate national surgical board examination performance and its relationship to the ACGME duty hour standards.
  
  
  METHODS
  In this retrospective cohort study, electronically published website content was evaluated for examination statistics for the 10 surgical boards in the American Board of Medical Specialties. To evaluate examination trends over time, we performed simple linear regression. We also performed interrupted time series analyses, using segmented logistic regression. The secondary analyses consisted of a χ(2) test of passing and failing examinees before and after 2003. All statistics used α  =  .05.
  
  
  RESULTS
  There were 8 of 10 (80%) surgical boards with examinations that met inclusion criteria and a total of 72 482 unique examination results. Of the 16 examinations evaluated (50% written, 50% oral), 13 (81%) had either significant pass rate trends on regression analyses and/or a significant pre-post pass rate surrounding the initiation of the ACGME duty hour standards in 2003 in the secondary analysis (P < .05).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  There are both increasing examination pass rates and some downward trends in examination performance on surgical board examinations since the initiation of the ACGME duty hour standards in 2003. The etiology of these trends is unclear, but trends are important to know for individual examinees, residency training programs, and surgical boards.
authors.forename: John L
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Falcone
authors.forename: Richard S
authors.initials: RS
authors.lastname: Feinn