Anesthesiology Boards: In-Training Exam (ITE)

What is the ITE

The Anesthesia In-Training Exam (ITE) is administered each February to all Anesthesiology residents and interns. The same 200-question, four hour exam is administered regardless of program year and acts as a good marker for how your knowledge increases as you progress through your residency. The ITE includes questions from the basic and clinical sciences, organ-based sciences, anesthesiology subspecialties, and special problems in anesthesiology. The full outline can be reviewed on the ABA site. 

Why the ITE matters

Because the ITE is taken each year of your residency, you should think of it as a marker of your academic progress. If you struggle with the ITE, it can be a good indicator that your study habits should change when preparing for the Anesthesia Boards. ITE scores are also used by the UAB Anesthesiology Residency program to identify residents who are struggling academically and to determine who can participant in supplementary programs like LEAD and RMRET. 

Below you'll find recommended resources and strategies for studying for the ITE in the PGY1 year and the CA1-CA3 years.

PGY1s take the same ITE exam as CA3s and your score will probably reflect this. Think of your score as a starting point to improve upon. Review books and quizbanks will be of limited utility for PGY1s as you'll need to build a foundation of basic knowledge first. We recommend you read Baby Miller:

UAB Anesthesiology Residents also recommend Hall's Anesthesia, a Comprehensive Review as a good, base-year review book:

ITE scores during your CA1 through CA3 year are a marker of how your doing academically. It's tempting to just use review books and quizbanks but it's important to continue to read a core anesthesia textbook. We recommend you keep up with your Morgan & Mikhail reading, particularly in your CA1 year: 

If you don't like Morgan & Mikhail, consider reading Barash's Clinical Anesthesia or Miller's Anesthesia instead:

Next, pick a review book. The Anesthesiology Library has several options in print and online: 

Finally, beginning in your CA1 year you'll have access to the TrueLearn ITE Quizbank. This quizbank includes an almost entirely new bank of ITE questions each academic year. Try to carve out some time for practice questions each week. If you start in July and do 25-30 questions per week you can review all 1,000 questions by the time you take the ITE!