title: Relationship of residency program characteristics with pass rate of the American Board of Internal Medicine certifying exam.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To evaluate the relationship between the pass rate of the American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM) certifying exam and the characteristics of residency programs.
  
  
  METHODS
  The study used a retrospective, cross-sectional design with publicly available data from the ABIM and the Fellowship and Residency Electronic Interactive Database. All categorical residency programs with reported pass rates were included. Using univariate and multivariate, linear regression analyses, I analyzed how 69 factors (e.g., location, general information, number of faculty and trainees, work schedule, educational environment) are related to the pass rate.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Of 371 programs, only one region had a significantly different pass rate from the other regions; however, as no other characteristics were reported in this region, I excluded program location from further analysis. In the multivariate analysis, pass rate was significantly associated with four program characteristics: ratio of full-time equivalent paid faculty to positions, percentage of osteopathic doctors, formal mentoring program, and on-site child care (OCC). Numerous factors were not associated at all, including minimum exam scores, salary, vacation days, and average hours per week.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  As shown through the ratio of full-time equivalent paid faculty to positions and whether there was a formal mentoring program, a highly supervised training experience was strongly associated with the pass rate. In contrast, percentage of osteopathic doctors was inversely related to the pass rate. Programs with OCC significantly outperformed programs without OCC. This study suggested that enhancing supervision of training programs and offering parental support may help attract and produce competitive residents.
authors.affiliation: Department of Family Medicine, Rajavithi Hospital, Bangkok, Thailand; amporn.a51@rsu.ac.th.
authors.forename: Amporn
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Atsawarungruangkit
mesh_terms: D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D004521:Educational Measurement; D005180:Faculty, Medical; D006801:Humans; D007388:Internal Medicine / Q000193:education*; D007396:Internship and Residency / Q000458:organization & administration* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D008007:Licensure, Medical / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D008611:Mentors; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D014481:United States
keywords: ABIM; internal medicine residency; pass rate; program characteristics