Surgical Critical Care Boards

The American Board of Surgery (ABS) awards board certification in Surgical Critical Care (SCC) after completing a SCC fellowship and successfully passing the SCC Certifying Exam, also known as the boards.

Exam Format

  • Approximately 200 Multiple-Choice Questions
  • Given Over 5-Hours
    • Administered in Three 90-Minute Session with Optional 10-Minute Breaks Between
    • Cannot Revisit Questions from Previous Sessions
  • Testing is Done in Certified Testing Centers
  • Results are Posted 4-8 Weeks After the Exam

How to Prepare

Year-Round:

  • Largely Concentrate on Your Clinical Duties and Learn from Pathology as You See it in Practice
  • Read Through Our Review Book at Least Once-Twice
  • Complete the Weekly Decker Medicine Curriculum (If Offered by Your Program)
  • Complete the MCCKAP and Surgical Supplement
    • *Only If Offered by Your Program – We Did Not Find the MCCKAP Exams to Be Helpful Enough to Recommend Purchasing Yourself

Dedicated Study Period (1-2 Months):

  • Read Through Our Review Book and Use it to Supplement as You Attempt Practice Questions
  • Complete a Minimum of 1,000 Practice Questions (We Recommend the Moore Question Book)
  • Options if You Have Extra Time and are Looking for Additional Questions:
    • Repeat the Moore Question Book a Second Time
    • Do Additional Questions from the Decker Medicine Question Bank
    • Try the Sonny Question Book

The Trauma ICU (TraumaICU.org)

  • A Spin-Off Program of The Operative Review of Surgery Dedicated Specifically to Trauma & Surgical Critical Care
  • Hundreds of Bullet-Point Articles on Relevant Topics to Allow Rapid Review
  • Reviews are More In-Depth if Further Reading is Desired
  • All Content is Openly Available at No Cost
  • Despite Our Obvious Bias, We Believe This Program Offers the Most High-Yield, Efficient, and Effective Review Articles to Help Prepare You for Boards

Resources

One factor that makes preparing for the Surgical Critical Care Boards more difficult is the lack of dedicated formal review material available.

Velez DR. The Surgical Critical Care Board Review. The O.R. 2025

Recipient of both the 2023 ACGME and 2024 SCCPDS awards for innovation in education, the author knows how to create high-yield content and is passionate about teaching.

Multidisciplinary Critical Care Knowledge Assessment Program (MCCKAP)

  • A 200 Multiple Choice Question In-Training Examination Offered in Early April by the Society of Critical Care Medicine (SCCM)
  • Many Programs Give it as the Required In-Training Exam (Similar to ABSITE)
  • Aimed at Medical ICU Topics with a Significant Percentage of the Content Being Outside the Scope of Surgical Critical Care

MCCKAP: Surgical Supplement

  • A 100 Multiple Choice Question Exam Offered by SCCM
  • Similar to MCCKAP but Directed More Toward Surgical Critical Care Topics
  • The Exam Itself is Newer and Less Established

Moore F, Rhee PM, Rodriguez CJ. Surgical Critical Care and Emergency Surgery: Clinical Questions and Answers, 3rd Edition. Wiley-Blackwell, 2024.

  • A Textbook Containing Almost 1,000 Practice Questions
  • The Best Resource for Practice Questions Available
  • Questions are Well Written and Perhaps the Most Relevant to Surgical Critical Care
  • Broken Down into Two Sections: Surgical Critical Care and Emergency Surgery – With a Few Topics in the Second Half Being Less Relevant to the Exam Itself

Sonny A, Bittner EA, Horvath RJ, Berg SM. Critical Care Medicine Review. Wolters Kluwer, 2019.

  • A Textbook Containing 1,000 Practice Questions
  • Dedicated Primarily to Medical ICU Topics with a Significant Percentage of Content Being Outside the Scope of Surgical Critical Care
  • Does Have Some Good Material if Looking for Additional Practice but Should Not Be the Primary Resource Used

Decker Medicine

  • An Online Learning Platform Comprised of Weekly Review Subjects and an Accompanying Question Bank
  • Similar to SCORE’s This Week in Surgery (TWIS) That Most General Surgery Residents are Familiar With
  • The Most Common Educational Platform Offered by Many, if Not the Majority of, SCC Programs
  • Generally Considered the Best Electronic Resource for Practice Questions