For program directors
In 2028 your graduating residents sit the first ABR oral exam in diagnostic radiology in fifteen years. Nobody in your program below attending level has taken one. VerbalWars is the practice room, from the first week of R1 to the week before the exam.
Exam facts below are the ABR’s. Read the full guide with a link to each source.
What they will face
- Seven one-on-one video sessions with seven examiners, about 20 to 25 minutes each, one content area per session, taken remotely.
- Standard case sets and a rubric of performance elements per case, scored 68 to 72 by examiners who commit before seeing each other’s scores.
- Critical findings and the common, important diagnoses of general practice, plus the ten procedures the APDR expects of a general radiologist.
- From 2028, every DR candidate must pass it to certify. In steady state it sits in June of R4.
What a resident gets
The conversation. An examiner puts up the study and asks. The resident answers out loud; a four-second pause sends the answer, and what they said decides the next question. Questions never name an organ, a finding or the management. A wrong answer gets no help unless the resident asks for a hint.
The band. Observation, Synthesis and Management on the ABR’s 68 to 72 scale, modeled on how the ABR describes the exam. Essentials decide whether a case can pass; refinements never fail anyone on their own; a dangerous claim caps the case at 69. How scoring works.
The debrief. After every case, what the examiner was listening for, item by item, beside the resident’s own words, and what an outstanding candidate would have said. Then they retake their misses as a set of their own.
Four years, not four weeks
VerbalWars is built for longitudinal assessment, not a cram in the last month of R4. A resident can start as an R1, taking one case at a time with hints on, and keep going until exam day feels like one more case.
- R1: confidence. Standard mode, a few cases a week, hints when stuck. The goal is to get used to saying a finding out loud to an examiner who waits, and to stop fearing the silence.
- R2 and R3: fundamentals and judgment. Sets by category across the seven ABR content areas, with diagnoses the resident has not covered first. Each case is a real patient with a history, staged studies and a next step, so the resident learns to think the way a case unfolds on service: what is this, what else could it be, what happens next, and who needs a call.
- R4: the real thing. Exam mode with feedback held until the set ends, Challenge mode with no hints, and retakes of the misses. By then the format is familiar and only the content is being tested.
It carries into dictation. Every case asks the resident to describe the finding precisely, commit to a diagnosis, name the pertinent negatives and state a recommendation. The debrief shows them, in their own words, where they were vague, where they hedged, and what a clear report would have said. That is the same discipline a good dictation needs, and the same discipline the exam rewards.
Progress you can see. Every attempt, transcript and band is kept, so a resident’s history shows how they moved from R1 to R4, not just where they finished. Coverage is counted only when a case is taken in full and its debrief marked complete, so the record reflects work done, not cases opened.
What you get
- Every attempt is kept. Transcripts, scores and the model answers persist, so a resident can show you exactly where they stand.
- Exam mode holds feedback until the set ends, for a mock session that feels like the day. Challenge mode removes hints.
- Sets of one to twelve cases by category across the seven ABR content areas, with diagnoses the resident has not covered first.
- Phone and computer, voice or text, with zoom, pan, invert, stacks and cine where the source provides them.
VerbalWars is in a private beta. Program access is arranged directly: the contact page says how to reach the founder with your program’s name and the number of residents.