ABPath Medical Microbiology

It is a one-day, computer-based examination. All questions are multiple choice in the one-best answer format, meaning each item has a single best response among the options. The questions are written to measure both your body of knowledge and your problem-solving ability in medical microbiology.

The Written/Practical sections contain 305 questions with a total testing time of 6 hours and 10 minutes. That works out to roughly 1.2 minutes per question, so pacing matters. Practice timed blocks so you can move steadily without leaving items blank at the end.

ABPath lists administrative and safety practices; quality control and infection prevention; taxonomy, classification and nomenclature; specimen collection, handling and processing; pathogenic mechanisms; antimicrobial mechanisms and susceptibility testing; media, reagents and stains; culture, nucleic acid and other detection methods for bacteria, mycobacteria, fungi, parasites, viruses and other transmissible agents; and patient care decision making and consultation.

Yes. ABPath states that Medical Microbiology terminology will be available as a reference in the Medical Microbiology Subspecialty exam. You do not need to memorize definitions of listed terms, but you should still be fluent in them so you can spend your time on reasoning rather than looking items up.

It is a subspecialty certifying exam, so it assumes working knowledge of clinical microbiology rather than introductory familiarity. Items combine laboratory data with clinical scenarios, so recall alone is not enough. The main risk is shallow breadth, such as knowing bacteriology well but being weak in mycology, parasitology, virology or susceptibility testing.

Neglecting lower-volume areas such as parasitology, mycobacteria and virology while over-studying bacteriology; weak command of susceptibility testing methods and interpretation; and poor time management on a 305-question, 6-hour-10-minute exam. Practicing one-best-answer questions under timed conditions exposes all three problems before exam day.

Start with the ABPath subject-area list and audit your weakest domains first, since the exam spans all of them. Then build a question-driven review that mixes bacteriology, mycobacteria, fungi, parasites and viruses with susceptibility testing and specimen processing. Finish with timed mixed sets so you practice switching domains rapidly.

ABPath's published exam description does not state a retake policy or a validity period for this subspecialty certificate. Those rules are set by the board and may change, so check the ABPath Booklet of Information and the subspecialty exam pages, or contact ABPath directly, for current policy.

Applications are submitted through ABPath's PATHway system, and the board publishes exam dates, deadlines and fees on its website. The published Medical Microbiology exam description does not list a fee or a passing score, so verify both with ABPath rather than relying on secondhand figures, which are frequently out of date.