What is the difference between a board-certified pediatrician and a board-eligible pediatrician?

Residency, which is training in one of the many medical specialities (e.g. pediatrics, internal medicine, surgery, obstetrics and gynecology, family practice, etc.), lasts anywhere from three to five years after medical school. Training time is longer if you want to be a subsupecialist (e.g. critical care, cardiology, gastroenterology, heart surgery, etc.). At the end of training you take a test: if you pass, you are “board certified” in the specialty or subspecialty. You can have several of these. For example, I am board certified in pediatrics and in pediatric critical (intensive) care medicine.

So what is “board eligible”? That means a physician who has completed the residency in a specialty or subspecialty but has not passed the test, either because he hasn’t taken it yet or he failed it.

The board-certified pediatrician has passed the national board examination in pediatrics and is certified as competent in that specialty, whereas a board-eligible pediatrician is eligible to take the national board exam in pediatrics but has not necessarily passed it.

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