Several physicians who experienced glitches while taking the internal medicine board exam on Aug. 13 are raising questions about their results.
The key issue was being locked out of their computers following breaks, which the American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM) has acknowledged — though it insists this did not cause any other technical problems.
In an Aug. 13 email to one of the affected test-takers, ABIM wrote that the program its partner company Pearson uses “to check examinees back into the test center following a break malfunctioned,” and as a result, “some examinees may have experienced a disruption.”
That was all test-takers heard until they received their results on Oct. 22. Several interviewed by MedPage Today received “indeterminate” results with failing scores and were told they will have to wait until next year to re-take the exam.
In an email to one test-taker who got an indeterminate result that was shared with MedPage Today, ABIM wrote the result “reflects uncertainty about the impact this disruption may have had on your exam day experience, not any concern about the completeness of your results or how your test was scored.”
Aaron Gans, MD, who received an indeterminate result, said his scores on the exam did not align with those he received during practice tests, and were lower than expected across all subject areas, which seemed unusual to him.
“It concerns me that there was a frame shift or some sort of systemic error in how the data were collected,” Gans told MedPage Today. “It raises the question of whether the testing software recorded every response. How did ABIM verify the accuracy of the scores?”
Another test-taker who requested anonymity also took the test in New York on Aug. 13 and had issues with signing back into the test after a break. This source also said her answers initially weren’t recording properly.
ABIM should have offered the opportunity to re-take the test within this year’s window, which ran from August into September, the source noted, since having to prepare all over again to take the exam next year takes a lot of time that busy clinicians don’t have.
Yet another test-taker in Georgia said it took about an hour and 20 minutes to be able to sign back in after a break. “I thought everything was fine until I received my score email from ABIM” last week, she explained.
Failing the test was a “huge surprise to myself and my program director,” after scoring above-average on two practice tests last summer, she noted.
“I cannot help but question if some of my answers were not saved properly because of the glitch,” she said, adding that several colleagues who also took the exam on Aug. 13 experienced glitches and scored several standard deviations below their practice scores.
“This has us truly questioning whether our scores are valid,” she said, though ABIM told her that her results were accurate, and that the glitch didn’t affect the scoring process.
She was also told that the next opportunity to take the exam would be in August 2027, and that ABIM can’t accommodate requests to take the exam earlier, with registration for the next exam opening Dec. 1.
Other users on Reddit posted similar examples of receiving indeterminate results, noting that on test day they were locked out or that their answers weren’t saving.
In an email to MedPage Today, Erica Johnson, MD, senior vice president for academic and medical affairs at ABIM, said it issued 371 indeterminate results associated with login delays on Aug. 13, and everyone who was issued an indeterminate result received a full credit for the exam fee.
“We are confident the scoring was accurate. Our concern was how a delay and the uncertainty around it may have affected a candidate’s concentration,” Johnson said in the email.
It’s not possible to offer re-takes before the next testing cycle, she added.
“Because we cannot know how experiencing a delay logging in to the exam might have affected individual candidates and their performance on the exam day, we reported an indeterminate result, rather than a ‘fail,'” she said. “We believe this is the fairest approach for candidates because it gives them the chance to retest under normal conditions without a failed attempt on their record.”
