ST. LOUIS—Registration is now open for the next American Board of Optometry board certification exam period for the month of January 2015, one of two months during the year when the exam is offered. (The exam is also offered in July.) Interested optometrists can take the exam at any Prometric Testing Center around the U.S. as well as at international locations. There are currently 2,781 ABO Diplomates who have successfully passed the exam and 2,275 active candidates who have begun the qualification process but haven’t taken the exam yet.

Certified by the National Commission for Certifying Agencies and approved by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the voluntary ABO board certification examination and program is for optometrists who graduated from a school or college of optometry accredited by the Accreditation Council on Optometric Education, who meet “residency or equivalent” requirements to qualify for the exam, and who hold an active license to practice therapeutic optometry in a U.S. state, commonwealth or territory.

Candidates take a 160-question general examination then answer 40 questions in each of two areas of emphasis that they have selected. The six available areas of emphasis are Additional General Practice, Contact Lenses, Pediatrics/Binocular Vision/Vision Therapy, Ocular Disease Anterior, Ocular Disease Posterior, and Vision Rehabilitation/Low Vision/Neuro-Ophthalmic Rehabilitation. The exam’s passing rate has been 93.1 percent.

The ABO also recently released a collection of interviews with five optometrists who are ABO Diplomates, discussing what certification has meant to them and their careers, how it benefits patients, and what advice they would give to others about taking the ABO exam. The ODs interviewed are Paul Karpecki, OD, FAAO; Lillian Kalaczinski, OD; Stephen Montaquila, OD; Essence Robinson, OD, FAAO; and Eugene Shifrin, OD.