Performance on the internal medicine second-year residency in-training examination predicts the outcome of the ABIM certifying examination.

For 223 residents from eight teaching hospitals, the results of the second-year in-training examination and the first-sitting certifying examination of the American Board of Internal Medicine were highly correlated. The results of the in-training examination can serve residents as an important measure of their preparedness for certification and can be useful in identifying the need for more intensive self-study strategies during the subsequent one and a half years.