ABOS Orthopaedic Surgery Part II

No. This is an independent study resource with no affiliation to, endorsement by, or connection with the American Board of Orthopaedic Surgery. All official policies, deadlines, fees, and formats must be confirmed on the ABOS website, and the ABOS Part II candidate pages are the only authoritative source for those details.

We do not state a format here because the retrieved ABOS material did not include the Part II examination description. ABOS publishes Part II rules and procedures, an information packet, and examination statistics on its own site; read those pages directly and rely on them rather than on any third-party summary, including this one.

Those figures are not given in the source material available to us, so we do not publish a number. Item counts and timing are revised periodically and an outdated figure is worse than none. Check the current ABOS Part II rules and procedures and information packet pages before you plan your test-day pacing.

We do not state a passing score, because the source material we could verify did not include one. ABOS publishes a Part II scoring rubric and examination statistics; those pages describe how performance is evaluated and are the correct reference. Treat any passing standard you see on a study site as unverified until you confirm it with ABOS.

Fees and dates were not available in the source we retrieved, so no dollar amount or deadline is listed here. ABOS maintains separate Part II fees and calendar pages, and a published deadline noted on the ABOS home page is 1 December 2026 at 4 pm ET for the Professional Standing Update/Case List.

The retake policy is not described in the material we could verify, so we do not summarize it. Retake rules, limits, and any reapplication requirements are set by ABOS and are covered in its Part II rules and procedures and FAQ pages. Confirm the current policy there before assuming how a second attempt would work.

Start with the domains you actually operate in least. Part II is practice-oriented, and candidates typically lose ground on breadth rather than depth, so build a rotation through adult reconstruction, trauma, spine, hand, pediatrics, foot and ankle, shoulder and elbow, sports, oncology, and basic science instead of over-reviewing your fellowship subspecialty.

Two patterns dominate. First, treating Part II like Part I and memorizing facts instead of rehearsing judgment and complication management. Second, neglecting the non-operative and professionalism content, including practice-based decision-making, which is easy to skip and hard to improvise. Breadth plus defensible reasoning beats volume of trivia.

Yes. ABOS publishes Part II case list instructions, a sample scribe sheet, and a list of procedures not to include, and the case list is part of the Part II process. Reviewing your own operative cases against those instructions sharpens the clinical reasoning the examination is designed to test, and it prevents documentation problems later.

Only at abos.org. The Part II section contains rules and procedures, calendar, fees, application instructions, case lists, scoring rubric, peer review, examination statistics, information packets, FAQ, patient-reported outcomes, and accommodations. Those pages supersede anything on this independent site, and they are updated when policies change.