| | | | Standardization of Graduate Education  By 1912, the American Academy of Ophthalmology and Oto-laryngology had grown into the largest medical specialty society in the United States. Academy members began to study and recommend plans to standardize graduate education in both ophthalmology and otolaryngology. Dr. Edward Jackson expressed the Academy’s position when he commented, “There is a great and pressing need that stable, conservative institutions of learning of the highest type should offer a formal course fitting their graduates for ophthalmic practice.”
Thus, in cooperation with the American Ophthalmological Society and the American Medical Association, the American Board of Ophthalmology (ABO) was established in 1916. The ABO was the first such medical specialty board in the United States.
The first exams were held in the Medical School of the University of Tennessee in Memphis. The exams consisted of both a written portion and an oral portion. Until 1933 the written part was given in the morning and the oral in the afternoon of the same day. Papers were read and graded in the late afternoon and results were reported at the Board’s evening meeting, which at times lasted until 2 a.m. |
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