Maine Orthopaedic Review has been getting orthopaedic surgeons ready for their boards for sixty-seven years. It is the oldest board review course in the country, directed by Dr. Bruce Gomberg, and its faculty of nationally known subspecialists has pressure-tested generations of candidates the way the examiners will. This year, we got to add something to that tradition.
A study tool, built on the side
Candidates sitting for the ABOS Part II oral exam bring a portfolio of twelve of their own cases, and assembling it is weeks of manual work. Patient names, dates, and record numbers redacted from every PDF by hand. Dozens of files renamed to the board portal’s exact conventions and sorted into its four-folder hierarchy. Case summaries written to rigid field limits. Then the real preparation starts: anticipating what an examiner will ask about each case, and rehearsing the answer.
Our day job at Mira is clinical software for orthopaedic practices. The study tool was a side quest: a co-branded app, built with Dr. Gomberg and the MOR team, that takes a pasted case roster and does the grunt work in minutes. It redacts PHI automatically, with the candidate reviewing every pass, renames and sorts files to board conventions, drafts the case summaries, audits each case for weak spots, pulls supporting literature, and writes an oral presentation script with practice questions and answers. A share link sends any case to a mentor for review, no login required.
You just saved me six weeks of work. Incredible.
The two halves fit deliberately. Candidates prep and rehearse solo with the tool, anytime, then defend their cases live in front of MOR faculty. Neither replaces the other.
What the first cohort told us
After this year’s exam, we surveyed the candidates who used the tool. On average, they rated it 4.5 out of 5 on overall value and 4.5 out of 5 on day-to-day ease of use, with the quality and accuracy of its content at 4 out of 5. Candidates reported that topics they had prepped in the tool showed up on the actual exam, and said they would recommend it to a friend preparing for their boards.
The first cohort also shaped where this goes next: next year we’re looking to build more supportive tooling around the course and its candidates, together with the MOR team.
The side quest cut both ways
Part II candidates are surgeons in their first years of practice, exactly the people Mira’s clinical products serve. A tool we built on the side has turned into one of our warmest introductions: candidates who met us through their boards keep the conversation going long after exam day, into the products we build for their clinics.
In reality, Dr. Gomberg, Dr. Xinning Li, and Deborah Humiston, who runs the course’s operations, are just a few of the many people at Maine Orthopaedic Review we have to thank for this partnership. Sixty-seven years in, the oldest review course in the country was also the first to hand its candidates an AI study partner. Cheers to that.