The ABA APPLIED Exam, explained

ABA initial certification is a series of exams: BASIC, ADVANCED and APPLIED. Residents can take BASIC at the end of the CA-1 year; ADVANCED comes after you graduate from residency and pass BASIC. APPLIED comes after you pass ADVANCED (ABA).

The clock: the ABA says you have seven years from the last day of the year you graduated to satisfy all certification requirements. Miss it and you must re-establish eligibility.

• Format: two 35-minute sessions of guided questions built on a brief clinical history, with an emphasis on the scientific rationale behind your management (ABA).
• What it assesses: judgment, how you adapt to unexpected changes in the clinical picture, and how you organize and present information (ABA).
• In the room: the ABA’s manual describes reviewing the first stem for 20 minutes and the second for 10, with two examiners in each session — two new examiners for the second (APPLIED Exam manual).

• Format: the published format has seven eight-minute stations, each with four minutes to review the scenario. Sessions are recorded for grading (ABA).
• What it assesses: communication, professionalism, and technical skills related to patient care (ABA).

The OSCE content outline lists these topics:

Communication & professionalism

• Discussing treatment options and informed consent
• Peri-procedural complications
• Ethical issues
• Communication with other professionals
• Practice-based learning and improvement (patient safety and quality improvement)

Technical skills

• Interpretation of monitors
• Interpretation of echocardiography and ultrasonography
• Application of ultrasonography
• Airway management (the outline marks this “testing to start 2027”)

The ABA’s FAQ says point-of-care ultrasound is tested at the Application of Ultrasound and the Interpretation of Monitors and Echocardiograms stations (FAQs). Its registration page says all 2027 candidates will take an additional, clearly identified pilot station — airway management or team-based skills — for data collection only; the ABA says it won’t affect results (registration).

• Finished residency on or after October 1, 2016: both SOE and OSCE.
• Finished residency June 30 – September 30, 2016: SOE only.

(ABA.) The ABA’s FAQ says one component takes about 3.5 hours and both take about 5.25 hours. Some candidates have an additional break of about two hours; follow your assigned schedule (FAQs).

• Where: the ABA’s FAQ refers to the AIME Center and to arriving in Raleigh for the exam (FAQs); the manual describes registering at a hotel on exam day (manual).
• When: six exam weeks a year. For 2027 the ABA lists March 1–4, March 22–25, April 12–15, May 17–20, September 13–16 and October 25–28 (ABA).
• Registering: the 2027 registration window was September 2–30, 2026, with a second window in early 2027 for candidates not yet eligible in September. You rank all six weeks; assignments are randomized from your rankings, weeks are assigned in late November, and exact dates and times follow about two months before your week (registration).

The ABA says results appear in your ABA GO portal about two weeks after the exam, with a full exam report about a week later. To be listed as certified and get your certificate, you must report an unexpired, permanent, unconditional, unrestricted medical license — a training license doesn’t count (FAQs).

Start with the ABA’s own material: SOE sample questions, the OSCE content outline (the FAQ says to prepare for the current outline), OSCE sample scenarios, the exam manual, and the “What to Expect” video the FAQ recommends.

Then rehearse out loud. For the SOE, practice giving a clear plan with your reasoning, and practice what you do when the examiner changes the case. For the OSCE, practice the consent, complication and ethics conversations in plain language, inside eight minutes. Study guides like our malignant hyperthermia review can help you structure a crisis answer, and you can browse DOME’s anesthesiology practice cases.