Urgent Care Medicine Exam Description

When and Where the Examinations are Offered

The American Board of Physician Specialties (ABPS), the official certifying body of the American Association of Physician Specialists, Inc. (AAPS), offers computer-based certification examinations for the Board of Urgent Care Medicine (BCUCM) twice a year, generally in May and September. The examination is offered at testing centers throughout the United States and Canada. The administration “window” is usually four weeks, and the candidate may take the examination on any day during the administration window that his/her selected test center is open. The four-hour exam must be taken in a single sitting.

The examination process in Urgent Care Medicine requires candidates to pass a computer-based (written) examination.

When Examination Results are Available

ABPS sends examination results to candidates within 75 days of the last day of the administration window. Each examination is scored against predetermined standards of acceptable performance, utilizing modified Angoff procedures for establishing the minimum acceptable scores.

The Written Examination—What to Expect

The written examination consists of approximately 300 multiple-choice questions offering four answer alternatives. (Experimental or non-scorable items may also appear on an examination. These questions will not necessarily be identified as non-scorable.) Each scorable question has only one correct answer. ABPS also provides a formal comment form on which a candidate can enter comments regarding any question. All comments are read to determine if an item (question) may be flawed.

Upon review of the comments and item analysis (statistical data), if an item is considered flawed, it is removed from the scoring of the examination. The passing score on forms of the examinations varies depending upon the expected performance values of the individual questions on the examination. Each response to a question is scored as correct or not correct, with no penalty for guessing in the calculation of a candidate’s final score.

Candidates receive score reports indicating their pass/fail status on the examination. Candidates who fail are provided a breakdown of their performance by subject content domains. All ABPS examinations are administered only in English. Responses from examinees to examination questions must be in English for the candidate to be eligible to receive credit towards his or her examination score.

The following table lists the approximate number of items in each domain included on each form of the examination:

	Domain	Number of Questions
1	Administration, Ethics, and Medical Legal	8
2	Cardiovascular Disorders	16
3	Dermatology	12
4	ENT and Oral Surgery	15
5	Endocrinology and Metabolic Disorders	7
6	Gastrointestinal Disorders	17
7	Hematology and Oncology	6
8	Infectious Diseases and Travel Medicine	22
9	Nephrology	5
10	Neurology	10
11	Obstetrics and Gynecology	12
12	Ophthalmology	10
13	Orthopedics	18
14	Pediatrics	18
15	Pharmacology and Toxicology	8
16	Wound Care, Anesthesia, Other Procedures and Skills	13
17	Pulmonology	17
18	Psychiatry	8
20	Triage and Stabilization of Critically-ill Patient	12
21	Urology	6
22	Sports Medicine	10
25	Occupational Medicine	9
26	Disaster Medicine and Environmental Injuries	8
28	Diagnostics	10
29	Rheumatology	6
32	Public Health and Preventative Medicine	8
36	Research, Epidemiology, and EBM	2
37	Allergy and Immunology	7
	Total	300

Urgent Care Medicine Examination Study References

You may wish to use the study references to prepare for the written certification or recertification examinations. The Examinations Committee uses these references to create questions for the examinations.

Author/ Editor	Title	Edition	Publisher	Year of Publication
Field et al (eds)	Advanced Cardiac Life Support Provider Manual	st edition	American Heart Association	2006
ACEP/AAP	APLS, The Pediatric Emergency Medicine Resource	6th edition	Jones and Bartlett Publishers	2006
Fox	Clinical Emergency Radiology	1st edition	Cambridge University Press	2008
McPhee et al	CURRENT Medical Diagnosis	48th edition	McGraw-Hill	2009
DeCherney et al	CURRENT Obstetrics and Gynecology Diagnosis and Treatment	10th edition	McGraw-Hill	2006
Tintinalli	Emergency Medicine: A Comprehensive Study Guide	6th edition	McGraw-Hill	2003
Simon	Emergency Orthopedics: The Extremities	5th edition	McGraw-Hill	2006
Biros	Handbook of Urgent Care Medicine	2nd edition	Elsevier’s Health Sciences	2002
Lee et al	Occupational Medicine Practice Guidelines: Evaluation and Management of Common Health Problems and Functional Recovery of Workers	2nd edition	OEM Press	2003
Ralston et al (eds)	Pediatric Advanced Life Support Provider Manual	1st edition	American Heart Association	2006
Strange	Pediatric Emergency Medicine	3rd edition	McGraw-Hill	2009
Condo	Principles of EKG Interpretation		AuthorHouse	2007
Pfenninger	Procedures for primary care physicians		Saunders	2005
Pickering	Red Book Plus 2006: Report of the Committee on Infectious Diseases	27th edition	American Academy of Pediatrics	2006
Gilbert et al	The Sanford Guide to Antimicrobial Therapy	38th edition	Antimicrobial Therapy	2008
Ehlers	The Wills Eye Manual: Office and Emergency Room Diagnosis and Treatment of Eye Disease	5th edition	Lippincott Williams & Wilkins	2008
Trott	Wounds and Lacerations: Emergency Care and Closure (Wounds and Lacerations: Emergency Care & Closure)	3rd edition	Mosby	2005

Retaking Examinations

A candidate may take the written examination as many as three times to attain a passing score. A candidate who is successful in passing the written examination is then certified and attains Diplomate status within ABPS and AAPS. Candidates who are not successful in passing the examination within the number of allowable attempts may reapply for certification by completing a new application and meeting all the requirements in effect at the time the new application is submitted.