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Examiner-examinee Gender Concordance is not associated with ratings on the American Board Of Surgery Vascular Surgery Certifying Examination
Ruojia Li, MD1, Carol Barry, PhD2, Beatrix Ibáñez, PhD2, Kellie R. Brown, MD3, Rabih Chaer, MD4, Thomas S. Huber, MD5, Andrew T. Jones, PhD2, Jason T. Lee, MD6, Bruce Perler, MD2, Malachi Sheahan, III, MD7, Bernadette Aulivola, MD1.
1Loyola University Medical Center, Maywood, IL, USA, 2American Board of Surgery, Philadelphia, PA, USA, 3Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, WI, USA, 4University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA, 5University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA, 6Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA, USA, 7Louisiana State University, New Orleans, LA, USA.

Objective- Implicit bias is a potential factor in the severity of examinee rating during oral examinations. Ratings may be impacted by examinee characteristics, such as gender, that are independent of examinee knowledge-base, clinical judgment or test-taking ability. The effects of examiner-examinee gender concordance in the Vascular Surgery Certifying Examination (VCE) have not been previously studied. We explored whether examiner ratings and likelihood of passing the exam were influenced by gender concordance amongst examiners and examinees.Methods- Data collected from examinees who first attempted the VCE between 2018 and 2023 were analyzed. There were 1,005 examinees (69.3% male, 30.1% female) and 121 examiners (71.9% male, 28.1% female). Linear Mixed-Effects Models and Generalized Linear Mixed-Effects Models were used to evaluate the effects of examiner and examinee gender on VCE ratings and likelihood of passing the exam.Results- Examiner-examinee gender concordance had no significant impact on examiner ratings or likelihood of passing the exam. Additionally, examinee gender alone had no significant impact on VCE rating or pass rates. Only Vascular Qualifying Exam (VQE) scores explained more than 1% of the variance in total VCE scores for the gender model (F(1,1003.5)=71.08, p-value < 0.01, R2 = 3%). VQE scores were positively related to total VCE scores. Conclusions- While implicit bias has the potential to impact examiner scoring, there is no evidence that this is the case with respect to gender in the Vascular Surgery Certifying Examination of the American Board of Surgery.


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