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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Board of surgery changes its exam rules

Associated Press

PHILADELPHIA – Doctors who fail the American Board of Surgery exam can no longer review their tests privately after one man wrote down the answers to dozens of questions and offered them for sale on the Internet.

The board found out last summer that 86 questions used on its 290-question multiple-choice exam were listed on eBay.

Board officials said it took just a few anonymous e-mail exchanges with the auctioneer to reach the doctor who obtained the questions.

The board said Craig Edward Amshel, a rectal specialist from St. Augustine, Fla., failed the 2002 exam.

But, as was allowed then, he later reviewed his test alone for several hours at the board’s offices in downtown Philadelphia.

Amshel sold two or three sets of questions for $180 to $300, his lawyer said.

“I was able to take notes very quickly and wrote down about 100 questions with the correct answer,” Amshel wrote by e-mail to a person posing for the board as preparing to take the 2004 exam. “Believe me, I was quite thrilled when I took the test last year as some questions were verbatim.”

Amshel, who passed the 2003 test, has had his board certification revoked. The board sued him in federal court in Philadelphia last fall, alleging copyright infringement and civil theft.

Amshel admitted to a copyright violation but not to the civil theft accusation.

He agreed to pay $36,000, the estimated cost of assembling teams of surgeons to go through the process of creating and testing new questions.

“This is a sad incident – first, because it’s so bizarre, but also because it says so much about the person’s disregard for the rules and ethics,” said the surgery board’s lawyer, Gabriel L.I. Bevilacqua.

Amshel is focusing on restoring his certification through the board’s appeals process, his attorney said.

“He didn’t believe what he was doing was wrong,” Dearden said. “He’s a young surgeon just getting started, well-regarded and just trying to put this behind him.”

In addition to passing the all-day exam, a surgeon must complete five years of training, get a recommendation from a mentor and complete an oral exam.