Neonatology boards prep in fellowship: protect two fixed study blocks a week. Fellowship fills your calendar with shifts, projects and committee meetings, and anything that is not scheduled gets crowded out. This plan shows how to build a schedule you can keep for three years and what to put in it, for the American Board of Pediatrics (ABP) neonatal-perinatal medicine certifying exam.
Why a fixed schedule beats a big push
The University of Wisconsin describes its neonatal and perinatal medicine fellowship as a three-year program that trains physicians in clinical expertise and in research skills. That is a long runway, and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) section on neonatal-perinatal medicine tells fellows that once they have passed the pediatric boards, they should start preparing for neonatology boards during fellowship. As of November 2026, that is the advice on its fellowship page.
So the question is not whether you have time. It is whether the time is protected. Two blocks a week, held on the same days, will do more than a month of good intentions that dissolve on the first busy rotation.
How to set up two blocks a week
Pick two blocks and write them into your calendar the way you would write in a clinic.
- Block one: learning. Ninety minutes to two hours on one topic from your list, with a notebook open.
- Block two: questions. The same length, spent on practice questions and on reviewing what you got wrong.
Choose slots that survive a rotation change. A post-call day is a poor choice, and so is any slot a colleague can ask you to cover. If a block is lost, move it within the same week instead of dropping it. The aim is two blocks every week, not a perfect plan.
How to order your topics with the ABP content outline
The AAP's fellowship page points fellows to the ABP's content specifications and tells them to review them. The ABP publishes a content outline for neonatal-perinatal medicine, and it is the right backbone for your list: it names the areas the exam is built from, so you do not have to guess.
A practical way to use it:
- Download the current outline from the ABP and read it once, start to finish.
- List every domain it names, and next to each write how comfortable you feel: strong, shaky or untouched.
- Start your learning blocks with the shaky and untouched domains, and give the strong ones a lighter pass later.
- Keep the list in one place and tick off a domain only after you have answered questions on it, not just read about it.
The outline gives you the structure. Do not treat any other source's guess at how many questions a topic carries as official. If the ABP does not publish a number, it is not a number you can plan around.
How to build question practice into the plan
Reading feels productive. Questions tell you what you actually know. The AAP recommends using PREP questions, available through AAP membership, as a study resource, and other question banks and review books exist as well. Pick one or two and stay with them rather than collecting many.
In your question block:
- Answer under time pressure, in sets, without looking anything up.
- For each miss, write one line on why: a gap in knowledge, a misread stem or a rushed choice.
- Tag each miss with the outline domain it belongs to, so your weak areas show up in your own notes.
- Return to the missed items a week later and answer them again.
This turns every session into feedback for the next learning block. Your question log becomes the guide to what to study next.
How to fit boards prep around your scholarly project
The University of California, Davis, says scholarly activity is an ACGME requirement and describes a written scholarly work product mandated by the American Board of Pediatrics and approved by each fellow's Scholarly Oversight Committee. The AAP tells fellows to check the ABP's scholarly activity requirements with their program director, so that the project qualifies them for the certifying examination.
That means your project and your boards prep compete for the same hours, and both are required. Put your project milestones and your two weekly blocks on one calendar, and protect the blocks first. A project that runs late can be rescued by a weekend. A year of skipped study blocks is harder to rescue.
What to do in the last weeks before the exam
A plan is guidance and not a promise, and nobody can tell you what a given plan will produce. What you can do is shape the final weeks so they are calm and specific.
- Weeks before: Move from learning blocks to mostly questions. Use your log to pick the outline domains where you still miss items.
- Final week: Review your own written notes on past misses rather than starting new material.
- Last two days: Confirm logistics with the ABP and your testing center, and keep your normal sleep and routine.
Start this phase early enough that it does not run into your clinical schedule. Ask your program director about protected time well ahead of the exam.
Exam dates, fees and rules change. Confirm the current details with the official exam body before you act on them.
Sources
- Top 10 things to know in fellowship, American Academy of Pediatrics, Section on Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine
- Scholarly activity, UC Davis Health, Department of Pediatrics
- Neonatal and Perinatal Medicine Fellowship program description, University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health
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