CAQ-Derm

The credential is issued by NCCPA, which states it is the only certifying organization for PAs in the United States and is accredited by the National Commission for Certifying Agencies (NCCA). This page is independent study material and has no affiliation with, or endorsement from, NCCPA or any other certifying body.

The official source retrieved for this page does not state the Dermatology CAQ format, item count, or time limit, and the dedicated Dermatology CAQ page returned a 404 at retrieval on 2026-11-06. Treat any specific format claim you see elsewhere as unverified and confirm directly with NCCPA before you build a test-day plan.

These values are not published in the source text used here, so we report them as unknown rather than guess. Check NCCPA's Specialty CAQ Resources and Key Dates pages, which the site navigation identifies as the official locations for CAQ logistics, and plan your pacing strategy once you have confirmed figures.

The passing standard is not stated in the available source, so it is reported as unknown. Difficulty is best judged by domain breadth: dermatology rewards pattern recognition across inflammatory, infectious, neoplastic, pigmentary, and procedural topics, so candidates who have practiced narrowly often find the breadth harder than the depth.

The retake policy is not specified in the source text retrieved here, so it is marked for review. Before you sit the exam, confirm the retake window, any waiting period, and the fee for a subsequent attempt through NCCPA, since these terms can change and are the kind of detail candidates most often assume incorrectly.

Fee and validity period are not stated in the available source and are reported as unknown. NCCPA maintains a Key Dates page and a Specialty CAQ Resources section; those are the authoritative places to confirm cost, application deadlines, and the maintenance cycle that applies to your certificate.

Start with the highest-yield, highest-volume domains: inflammatory dermatoses, cutaneous infections, and benign versus malignant neoplasms. Then add pigmentary, hair and nail disorders, pediatric and genetic conditions, and dermatopathology correlation. Finish with procedural and cosmetic dermatology plus cutaneous signs of systemic disease, which are lower volume but commonly tested.

Three recur: studying by memorizing lists instead of practicing lesion description and differential building; skipping dermatopathology and procedural content because it feels outside daily practice; and never doing timed, image-heavy case sets. Candidates who only read textbooks often recognize terms but cannot commit to a best answer under time pressure.

Use them diagnostically first, not as a scoreboard. Log every miss by domain and by error type - knowledge gap, misread stem, or pattern-recognition failure - then re-test only the weak domains after targeted review. Image-based cases and morphologic description drills transfer better to dermatology items than pure fact recall.

No. The CAQ is a specialty certificate layered on top of NCCPA board certification, not a substitute for it. NCCPA notes that it regards the titles "physician assistant," "physician associate," and "PA" as equivalent and synonymous, so title wording does not change what the credential represents.