Of course, we cannot conflate pass rates with a program’s overall quality or ability to produce competent and compassionate physicians. One program’s pass rate might reflect their academic rigor through didactics and board review, and the next program’s might reflect the breadth of pathology and volume of patient encounters, and yet another’s might merely reflect the ability of their residents to learn independently without much external guidance or oversight. Is a program’s consistently high pass rate a testament to its curriculum, or is it a reflection of its ability to support trainees through an unprecedented pandemic that stretched our health care system to the brink of collapse and left many physicians with emotional baggage for years to come?
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ACEP Now: November 2025Understandably, there are concerns within our community of emergency physicians regarding the ABEM pass rate data being easily accessible. Programs working to improve their resident education might feel as if their hard work, and the hard work of their residents, is not being acknowledged due to the medical field’s insistence on using standardized testing as the gold standard, even when their patient outcomes and satisfaction scores might be phenomenal. Additionally, one could argue that the timing could have been better. These data were released just two weeks before many newly minted emergency physicians will be taking written boards and, depending on which program they have graduated from, this information could either provide reassurance or increase anxiety. Although this year’s residency applicants may not have been able to use these data to help inform their application list, they can at least use it to guide their acceptance of interview invites and their rank lists.
References
- American Board of Emergency Medicine. Now Available: ABEM Exam Pass Rates by Residency Program. October 27, 2025. https://www.abem.org/news/now-available-abem-exam-pass-rates-by-residency-program/
- American Board of Emergency Medicine. American Board of Emergency Medicine to Begin Publishing Program Exam Pass Rates in Fall 2025. April 28, 2025. https://www.abem.org/news/american-board-of-emergency-medicine-to-begin-publishing-program-exam-pass-rates-in-fall-2025/
- Association of American Medical Colleges. Decoding Geographic and Setting Preferences in Residency Selection. January 18, 2024. https://www.aamc.org/services/eras-institutions/geographic-preferences
- Schnabel N, Okoli D, Calabrese J, et al. The Expansion Dilemma: A Critical Look at the 13-Year Increase in Emergency Medicine Residency Positions. AEM Educ Train. 2025;9(3):e70064. Published June 12, 2025. doi:10.1002/aet2.70064. PMCID: PMC12159687. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12159687/
- Gettel C. Emergency medicine residencies more likely to go unfilled at for-profit and newly accredited programs. The Conversation US. January 8, 2024. Accessed November 2, 2025. https://theconversation.com/emergency-medicine-residencies-more-likely-to-go-unfilled-at-for-profit-and-newly-accredited-programs-218991
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4 Responses to “Why ABEM Publishing Certification Exam Pass Rate Data Could be a Good Thing”
November 17, 2025
Chris BostdorffI support publishing Certification Exam pass rate data.
I support publishing this data for all the reasons mentions.
Well thought out and written article .
November 17, 2025
jerimiah smartWe need transparency. Why are we so afraid of it with everything? This is just one more way to judge and guide decision making…not the only but, but one part. We can still relay on references and PD comments but we all know that some residents may not deserve graduation unequivocally but are granted that to avoid the issues of HR, legal proceedings, and honestly, just to get them by so we don’t have to deal with them. We all know this is true…why do we stick our head under the sand? I sincerely this does not become an ego thing for programs, which it appears it has. We all know there are many factors, not just test scores that make a great doc. Let this be one of the factors and don’t be afraid of it. That and may be a good assessment of programs.
November 18, 2025
Thomas H. Matese Jr, DO, FACEPI appreciate the sentiments expressed by Dr. Bull, but as a program director I would like to have ABEM be more transparent as to the reasons for publishing this information. If, as expressed by Dr. Bull, this release is to inform the public of the quality of training programs writ large, it seems a bit incomplete as it is but one potential marker of said quality. If on the other hand it is to inform programs of the results of our alumni as a means to make improvements in our curriculum, I would argue that like many other specialties, ABEM should make the results known directly to programs at the individual level. This information would allow programs, in retrospect, to identify trends particular to our learners at the individual level that would assist in identifying particular learner traits that would have impact on future test takers.
November 18, 2025
Bradford Walters, MD, FACEPThere seemed to be an undercurrent implication in the article that high pass rates on the exam was not a good thing. I might be reading more into it than I should but, would disagree with high pass rate is bad. The question the exam should answer is whether the candidate has sufficient didactic knowledge to be a competent emergency physician. It’s easy to make an exam with a high failure rate. Measuring competency is more difficult.