Abstract
This year will be the first time the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology (ABPN) will offer a subspecialty certification in epilepsy. This was done to establish epilepsy as an area of sub-specialization and does not replace the ABPN certification in Clinical Neurophysiology which incorporates various electrophysiological testing modalities including EEG, EMG, and NCV.
Candidates for the examination must be certified by the ABPN in neurology or neurology with special qualification in child neurology. Applicants must have completed one year of fellowship training in an ACGME-accredited epilepsy fellowship program. For the period of 2013–2017 (“grandfathering period”) candidates can qualify for the examination by documenting completion of one year of fellowship in a non-ACGME-accredited epilepsy program affiliated with an ACGME-accredited neurology or child neurology program. Alternatively, for this initial period only, a candidate can qualify for the examination by attestation of 25 percent practice time devoted to epilepsy for two years beyond completion of residency training.
The examination is a multiple-choice, computer administered, timed examination with questions in all areas of epilepsy, including seizure classification, routine EEG interpretation, evaluation and management of patients with seizure disorders, system-based practice issues, video-EEG, invasive EEG monitoring, and mechanisms of the epilepsies with evaluation and management questions comprising over 60 percent of the examination. In contrast to the examination in Clinical Neurophysiology, there are no questions on evoked potentials, primary sleep disorders, or EMG/NCV. The link to the full content outline is:
The first examination will be offered October 28 through November 5, 2013 at Pearson VUE testing centers. The deadline for applications is April 15, 2013 (late application deadline June 15, 2013). The examination will again be offered August 11–15, 2014. There is no examination currently planned for 2015. Another examination will be offered during the last two years of the “grandfather period.”
Further information can be obtained on the ABPN website www.abpn.com/sub_epilepsy.html