16th EUROPEAN BOARD OF NEUROLOGY EXAMINATION 2024

 

DATE

The 16th European Board Examination in Neurology will be organised ONLINE.

Oral examination:

31 May & 1 June 2024 (Friday/Saturday)

Written examination:

7 June 2024 (Friday)

 

GENERAL

• The European Board Examination in Neurology is a joint development of the UEMS Section of Neurology (EBN, European Board of Neurology) and the European Academy of Neurology (EAN).
• The exam is based on the European Training Requirements for Neurology (ETRN, https://www.uems-neuroboard.org/web/index.php/european-training-requirements).
• A candidate who (nearly) finished a training in Neurology should be able to take the exam.
• There is a written exam for testing (management of) knowledge and an oral exam for judging other CANMEDS competencies (medical expert, communication, health advocate, scholar, professional).
• English is the official language but participants are allowed to use their own dictionary and will not explicitly be assessed for their skills in English language.
• The written exam contains a closed book section with questions related to review papers in the field of neurology related to ETRN chapter 8A Specific Learning Objectives in Neurology. These papers are defined and provided on this website.
• The other part of the written exam consists of open book questions where the participant is allowed to use own reference sources.
• The exam is based on European foundations but non-European candidates are welcome and get the opportunity to bring in their experiences in their home country during the oral examination.
• Candidates have to send in original submissions. These will be checked on unlooked for plagiarism.

The exam was held for the first time in 2009. Since then, 752 candidates have passed the exam. Successful candidates from all over the world are now awarded the title "Fellow of the European Board of Neurology (FEBN)". This title is not identical to the title "Fellow of the EAN".

11th European Board Examination in Neurology – 28. June 2019 – Oslo, Norway

 

WHY TAKE A EUROPEAN NEUROLOGY EXAMINATION?

Passing this exam is a proof of excellence and gives the individual candidate a distinguishing mark, which may be an advantage in an application procedure within Europe. There are until now no legal consequences of the diploma!
The European Board Examination in Neurology is an important step towards further harmonisation and raising standards in European neurology. Cooperation with European scientific societies makes that the exam is in line with the current state of the scientific art.

A few words of praise from successful candidates:

„I thoroughly liked the entire exam irrespective of whether I get through or not. Examiners were very learned, courteous, and made me feel comfortable. I have no complaint whatsoever.“

„The oral examination part was a wonderful experience for me as I was able to interact with international faculty for the first time. They appreciated my work and that gave me a lot of confidence to move ahead in my profession . Will never forget their faces, thank you for the experience.“

"Many thanks. Being a FEBN I noticed that the world turns in different ways, as the title and the knowledge have opened many new doors and opportunities in the field of Neurology for me. Furthermore, the preparation and revision for the exam, which I completed successfully after 3,5 years of training in field of neurology, expanded further my knowledge in the area.". Thanking you sincerely"

"I would like to thank you a lot for all the help you gave me, your wonderful kindness and your generous availability; for making this experience one of the best of my life and a dream comes true."

“Ι would like to thank you for the excellent organisation of the examination, which I will certainly recommend to all my colleagues. It was a unique experience to test our knowledge and skills!”

 

 

APPLICATION

Applications are open!

Participation in the Congress of the European Academy of Neurology (EAN) is not required for participation in the EBN examination but candidates taking this exam will get a reduction on their congress fee.

Deadlines

• Early bird application deadline: January 15^th, 2024
• Final application deadline: March 1^st, 2024
• Deadline for submitting workpieces (CAT, Essay) for the oral examination: March 5^th, 2024

Conditions

• By applying for the European Board exam, one agrees to take the exam in the form and structure described and acknowledges that cancellation is only possible in accordance with the cancellation policy.
• Please check the rules for taking an online board exam Neurology here below before applying and see whether these can be fulfilled in order to prevent disappointments afterward!
• An application must be made by March 1^st, 2024 at the latest by filling out the application form (see link to the secure server at the bottom of the page).
• It is essential that the application form is filled out correctly with personal data (especially first and last name) as these data will be used for the certificates, which can only be changed at a later date against payment of an additional fee.
• The application must be confirmed by payment, the application date is the date of transfer to the uems_ebn bank account. Upon registration the applicant will be provided with a confirmation e-mail. Numbers for further correspondence and organisation will be sent by 15th January - payment provided.
• In the event of exam failure, there is no restriction on participation in follow-up examinations, provided that a (reduced!) examination fee is paid. Registration for the exam requires that the candidate accepts that the result of the exam is final. A legal debate about the final decision is not possible.

 Rules for taking an online board exam Neurology

Eligibility criteria

The European Board of Neurology does not require certificates, but it is assumed that candidates have completed their basic training in general practice and a national training programme with at least three years of training in clinical neurology in order to pass the examination.
Only identification documents are required on the day of the examination.

Please use the same ID documents for application and for identification at the exam!

 

PAYMENT

Please transfer ASAP the fee free of charge for the beneficiary.

Admission Fees (in EUR)		Earlybird fee until January 15, 2024		Regular fee before March 01, 2024
Exam Fee €		600		700

 

In the year of taking the exam, the following discounts on the congress registration fees apply:
-20% for EAN members of the sections Resident and Research Fellow and/or Full/Corresponding EAN members (https://www.ean.org/Members.2669.0.html) whether or not taking the exam.
-10% discount for other exam participants who are not full members of EAN.
Upon payment of your exam registration fee, you will receive a discount on the congress registration fee.

In the event of irregularities requiring further administrative steps, an additional handling fee of € 100 may be charged after notification.

For cancellations made before April 15th, subsequent applications for 2025 will be possible for a considerably reduced charge. There will not be a repayment of fees in case of cancellations because of administration and bank-transfer costs.

In case of irregularities requiring further administrative action, an additional handling fee of € 100,- may be charged upon notification.
In case of cancellations before 15 April, future registrations for 2025 are possible at a reduced price.

Payment of the respective amount free of charge for the beneficiary:

Name of the account: UEMS/S. Neurology
IBAN: BE97 0016 3680 2349
BIC/SWIFT: GEBABEBB
Name of the Bank : BNP Paribas
Address of the Bank: Montagne du Parc 3 | BE-1000 Brussels | Belgium

 

CONTENTS

The examination is not an ultimate test to retrieve knowledge from memory, but a competence based exam founded on the roles adopted by UEMS: Medical Expert, Communicator, Scholar, Health Advocate, and Professional.

The examination consists of the following parts:

1. About 100 MCQs on general Neurological topics (tbd). A part (60%) of the written examination can be taken with the help of reference sources (‘open book exam’)
2. A short essay on a neurology-related topic of public health or ethics that is discussed orally with the examiners. Please have a PowerPoint Presentation of your essay with you.
3. A critical appraisal of a neurological topic which will be discussed orally with the examiners. Please have a presentation on your CAT with you.
4. A presentation of a clinical case for oral discussion

The results of these 4 examinations are summarized to an overall grade.

Written part of the examination

The aim of this part of the examination is to test knowledge (closed book exam) and the handling of knowledge (open book exam).
You will enter the answers to the questions into your laptop.
About 40 questions have to be answered within the first 60 minutes (90 seconds per question) without using references. A dictionary in your own language is permitted. The rest can be answered within the following 180 minutes (3 minutes per question) using paper references of your choice. We recommend just to use your own textbook and, if you wish, a few print-outs for the examination. Having too much literature available will confuse you!

Written exam
during 1 hr: closed book exam / 40 MCQs
during 1,5 hrs: open book 1 exam / 30 MCQs
during 1,5 hrs: open book 2 exam / 30 MCQs

The written part of the examination counts for 70% of the final mark.
Multiple Choice Questions are selected from the main topics and diseases listed in our  European Training Requirements Neurology (Vers. 2021) .

For your preparation we recommend:

1. Your own textbook on Neurology and other books you find useful. These books may be taken to the exam to be used as a reference source in the open book parts.
2. Standard papers as given below.

These sources will be used by the question authors as well.

Guidelines/Papers/Documents related to the closed book questions (all pdf):

1. 2017 ESO guideline cerebral venous thrombosis
2. Guidelines on Mechanical Thrombectomy in Acute Ischaemic Stroke
3. Advances in dementia with Lewy bodies
4. Emerging Trends in Neuromodulation for Treatment of Drug-Resistant Epilepsy
5. EAN guideline cluster headache 2023
6. Post-Traumatic Headache
7. 2020 EAN guideline on pall care in MS
8. Advances Neurosyphilis
9. The neuropsychiatry of Parkinson disease
10. 2020 EAN guideline coma
11. Managment TBI in the first posttraumatic hours
12. Recent advanes in traumatic brain injury
13. Neurol complications vasculitis
14. Guideline CIDP 2021
15. Treatment and diagnosis of chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy
16. Bedside Testing in Acute Vestibular Syndrome
17. Psychiatric features of traumatic encephalopathy syndrome
18. Advances in Stroke Neurorehabilitation
19. Peripheral nerve blocks for headache disorders
20. Current Updates on Idiopathic Normal Pressure Hydrocephalus
21. 2020 EAN statement on sleep and stroke
22. European guideline and expert statements on the management of narcolepsy
23. EAN guideline neurogenic supinate hypertension

 Examples of MCQ

 Some tips How to answer multiple-choice questions (MCQs)

It is forbidden to speak loudly during the examination and to cover the ears so that any earplugs would not be noticed.

Oral part of the examination

The aim of this part of the examination is to test presentation skills, communication, the ability to discuss ethics and public health issues and current scientific issues. Language difficulties for candidates of non-English speaking countries will be taken into account.
For the oral part three submissions are required: a clinical case presentation, a critical appraisal of a topic and an essay on public health or an ethical issue. These submissions must deal with topics from different fields. It is thus not allowed to send both the critical appraisal and the essay on a problem in the field of multiple sclerosis.
Two of these submissions, the critical appraisal and the essay, should be sent before the exam in separate files to enable the examiners to check on form, contents and plagiarism. These submissions should be accompagnied by a declaration that own work is presented which can be downloaded here. The submissions should carry the exam number on the top of the text.

Please send these submissions timely (i.e. before March 5th) and contact us in case of difficulties. Failure to do so may be considered as a cancellation of the examination. In the case of an incomplete set of documents sent after a complete subscription, we will send you a reminder before the examination.
There is no need to send the presentation of the clinical case before the exam.

Essay

You are asked to write an essay on an ethical or a public health topic in the field of neurology. 

How to prepare the essay to be presented

It is allowed to take other subjects of own preference. Write a short essay (max. 800 words) following the instructions.

It is the candidate’s responsibility to send in this document timely.

Examples for essays and Powerpoint presentations:

Examples of neurology related Ethics topics
Examples of neurology related Public Health topics

We ask you to prepare an oral presentation with a PowerPoint about your essay. This PowerPoint should not be submitted before the exam. During the exam, there will be 5 minutes to present your essay to the examiners. Please use your laptop to present some of the slides you have created. These PowerPoint slides should not be sent in before the examination.

The examiners will ask further questions for another 5 minutes and then fill out the form as shown in the example.
This part accounts for 10% of the final mark.

Critical appraisal on a topic (CAT)

You are asked to critically evaluate a topic in the field of clinical neurology. This appraisal should be an original piece and is also checked for plagiarism by a scanner.

How to perform a CAT

We ask you also to prepare an oral presentation with PowerPoint about your CAT. This PowerPoint should not be submitted before the exam. During the exam you have 5 minutes to present your CAT to the examiners. Please use your laptop to present some of your slides. These PowerPoint slides should not be sent before the examination.

The examiners will ask further questions for another 5 minutes and then complete the form as shown in the example.

This part accounts for 10% of the final mark.

CAT and essay should relate to different areas of neurology.

Clinical case

You will also be asked to present a clinical case that you dealt with in your own practice. This should not be a really exotic problem but something interesting. The examiners will ask you about the way you made the diagnosis and about the problems you encountered with doing so. Furthermore some other questions about the details of the patient problem and the policy chosen by you will be asked.
Please prepare an oral presentation with a PowerPoint.
This part represents 10% of the final mark.
It is not requested to submit the clinical case before the exam, the presentation only should be available at the oral itself.

Case presentation example

Structured evaluation of a case presentation

After paying the fee, you will get a link to upload your CAT and ESSAY.

  

EVALUATION OF RESULTS

Written tests
After receiving the results of the candidates, the data are analysed according to p-values (number of candidates who provided the right answer) and RIT-values (relation between the result of the candidate regarding the individual question related to the total result obtained). Questions with insufficient statistics are eliminated.
We correct for chance (so for best out of 5 questions we neglect the first 20% correct answers) and do not work with negative scores for incorrect answers.
Afterwards the Cohen method is used to calculate a passing limit as a control measurement. The final marks will be calculated taking into account a real knowledge limit of 60%.

Oral tests
Two examiners prepare their own score for each of the three parts of the oral examination. All three marks between 0 and 10 are averaged to a mean score.

 

HAVE READY BEFORE THE EXAMINATION

• The appriate equipment and browser (!), see  instructions and rules
• Reference sources for the open book part of the written exam
• Your PowerPoint presentations for the oral exam
• Identification documents as described in the instructions

 

APPLICATION  

 

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.