Collaboration with Medical Education: Board Exams of Medical Specialist’ Associations

Objective: In Turkey, the boards were established in the last twenty years. Collaboration between boards and medical education discipline will lead board exams to be valid, reliable, acceptable, and fair. In this study, it is aimed to reveal the areas where boards can collaborate with the medical education discipline.
Methods: A workshop was held within the scope of a congress held in İzmir in February 2020. In the workshop, it was aimed to raise awareness about the stages of board examination from planning to implementation and the knowledge and skills that board members should have. At the beginning of the workshop, participants were taken to the 5-station Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE). OSCE stations evaluated participants’ characteristics, proficiency exam planning, question preparation, question evaluation, and problem-solving. A discussion session was conducted based on the basis of participant performances. The workshop was completed with a presentation on deciding the pass-fail score of an exam.
Results: It was determined that the participants did not have information about board exams and were not involved in planning. It was determined that the participants could not write multiple-choice questions in accordance with the criteria and could not technically evaluate the prepared multiple-choice questions. At the problem-solving OSCE station where performance was evaluated, some participants could not use the time effectively and did not consider the rules. A session was held to decide the passing score of the OSCE that participants were included in. The Angoff technique was used and the scores determined by the participants were visualized, and the importance of reconciliation for the passing score was discussed.
Conclusion: The workshop showed that there are areas that can be collaborated with the medical education discipline in planning and implementing board exams.