Law might be different. An anecdote my Dad (Lawyer) used to tell me.

> I went to school to learn the law. After school I had to teach myself how to be a lawyer.

Yes, the bar exam requires you to learn much law you'll never use. They are a general test that covers all areas of the law.

Boards are for specific specialties. You don't take a board to be a doctor, you take a board to be a podiatrist, etc.

Personally, I think both exams are about protectionism more than anything else.

Source: have taken a bar exam, have a wife that's a doctor.

It's the same in land surveying with the LPS licensing exams.

But in the case f doctors and lawyers, they pass it once, not every time they interview for a new job. Software doesn’t have licensing, so we do this bullshit every single time.

We would still do it if there was licensing. Doctors and lawyers still interview for jobs.

> We would still do it if there was licensing. Doctors and lawyers still interview for jobs.

People interview in most jobs, but people in licensed professions don’t generally have exams testing minimal professional competency in interviews because assurance of minimal professional competency is delegated to the appropriate professional licensing body, which implements entry exams, continuing education requirements, professional complaint/discipline processes, etc.

Minimal competency screening is abstracted out to a reusable, memoizing, component.

Medical boards are at the specialty level, so there is no equivalent. An OB is not going to have to answer primary care questions, for example. They'll all be very specialized.

Futhermore, you actually practice for several years prior to taking your boards, at which point you submit a representative subset of your cases from actual work, and a bunch of folks toward the end of their career grill you on them, then decide if you pass.

I agree with your comment. My wife took USMLE exams (all three steps) and she would complain to me that most of the stuff she memorize there, she'd forget them in a year or so (and eventually resort to Google and/or https://www.uptodate.com/home to refresh/review). :)