ABR-NMP-P2 Requirements 2026: Eligibility, Prerequisites & How to Qualify

Overview of ABR-NMP-P2 Requirements

The Nuclear Medical Physics Part 2 Qualifying Examination (ABR-NMP-P2) is administered by the American Board of Radiology as one stage within the broader medical physics certification pathway. Before you can even register for this remotely proctored exam, ABR requires you to satisfy a specific sequence of academic and testing milestones. This article walks through exactly what those requirements are, how the timing rules work, and how the application cycle fits together for candidates preparing for the current 2027 administration.

If you haven't yet reviewed what the exam actually covers, it helps to pair this eligibility breakdown with the ABR-NMP-P2 Exam Domains 2026 guide so you understand what you're becoming eligible to sit for.

Part 1 Prerequisite: What Must Be Completed First

Standard Part 2 eligibility requires that you have already passed both the General and Clinical sections of Part 1. There is no partial credit pathway here - passing only one section does not open the door to Part 2. This structure means your preparation timeline for Nuclear Medical Physics Part 2 is inherently sequential: Part 1 completion is a hard gate, not a parallel track.

Candidates sometimes assume they can begin Part 2 content review while still finishing Part 1 sections. That's fine for studying, but formal eligibility to apply and register will not exist until both Part 1 sections show as passed in your ABR record.

Residency and Doctor of Medical Physics Pathway

Beyond passing Part 1, you must be completing - or be clearly on track to complete - a CAMPEP-accredited residency or Doctor of Medical Physics program by August 31 of the exam year. This deadline is fixed regardless of when in the year the actual Part 2 exam date falls, so candidates finishing training later in the calendar year need to plan their application timing carefully.

Board Eligibility Window and Timing Rules

Once you're eligible for Part 2, that eligibility does not last forever. Board eligibility runs for six full calendar years from either residency completion or Part 2 approval - whichever occurs first. This is a meaningful planning detail: candidates who delay registration after becoming eligible are effectively spending down a fixed clock.

For a full breakdown of how this exam is scored once you sit for it, see the ABR-NMP-P2 Passing Score guide, which explains the criterion-referenced standard used for pass/fail determination.

Additional-Specialty Pathway for Certified Physicists

Not every Part 2 candidate is coming from a first-time residency track. Medical physicists who are already board certified in another specialty have a separate additional-specialty pathway. This route involves ABR-approved prospective, supervised clinical training in Nuclear Medical Physics while the candidate maintains their existing certification in good standing.

This pathway matters for professionals who trained originally in a different medical physics specialty and later want to add Nuclear Medical Physics credentials without restarting their entire certification history. The supervised training component still has to be ABR-approved in advance - it isn't something you can document retroactively.

Application Windows, Registration and Fees

For the current cycle, the Part 2 application window opens on the first business day in February and closes March 31, 2027. Approved applicants are then invited to register through myABR in May 2027, ahead of the published Part 2 examination date of August 11, 2027. Missing the March 31 cutoff typically means waiting for the next annual cycle, so calendar planning is not optional here.

On the financial side, the Part 2 examination fee is USD 640, due at the time of registration. This is separate from the standard initial medical physics certification application fee of USD 250, which is a distinct pathway charge rather than part of the exam fee itself. If a first attempt at Part 2 results in failure, ABR lists a one-time USD 250 re-examination fee that applies to Part 1 and/or Part 2 retakes. All fees are nonrefundable, though prepaid exam fees tied to a cancellation or nonattendance roll forward and are applied toward the next available exam.

For a complete line-item breakdown of every fee a candidate might encounter across the certification pathway, see the ABR-NMP-P2 Certification Cost breakdown. Exact dates and deadlines for the current and upcoming cycles are tracked separately in the ABR-NMP-P2 Exam Dates guide.

Exam Format You Are Qualifying For

Understanding requirements is only half the picture - it helps to know exactly what the exam you're becoming eligible for looks like. The Nuclear Part 2 exam is a remotely proctored, computer-based examination administered in one session, with registration through myABR. The July 23, 2026 remote-exam guide specifies 130 questions with 4 hours and 1 minute of answering time, plus 20 minutes for tutorial/practice and 25 minutes of break allowance, for a total allotted time of 4 hours 46 minutes.

The exam is predominantly multiple-choice, though ABR preparation materials also describe image-location items presented under a Drag and Drop format, where candidates identify an anatomical site, equipment component, or graph region. It is closed book: you'll need a private, quiet testing space, one active monitor, and an external side-view webcam, with ABR staff monitoring live and reviewing recordings. An embedded calculator or ABR-approved handheld calculator is allowed, along with a compliant physical erasable whiteboard that must be clear at the start and end of the session - scratch paper and personal notes are prohibited.

For a deeper walkthrough of how difficult this format tends to feel in practice, see How Hard Is the ABR-NMP-P2 Exam?, and for data-driven context on outcomes, review the ABR-NMP-P2 Pass Rate article - note that published Medical Physics Part 2 pass-rate figures are all-specialty aggregates, not Nuclear Medical Physics-specific results.

Content Domains You Must Be Eligible to Sit For

Eligibility isn't just administrative - it's tied to demonstrated readiness across five official content areas. There are no published domain percentage weights, so candidates should treat all five as requiring genuine command rather than assuming any single domain dominates the exam.

ABR also supplies a list of constants and physical values for calculations, but does not guarantee it covers every value you'll need - reviewing its organization ahead of time is worthwhile. Calculator familiarization exercises covering radioactive decay and Mo-99/Tc-99m generator calculations are practice exercises only, not actual exam questions.

What Happens After You Pass Part 2

Results are normally posted in myABR with email notification approximately one month after the exam, evaluated against a criterion-referenced pass/fail standard rather than a curve. Failing requires retaking the entire Part 2 exam - there's no partial retest of individual domains.

Passing Part 2 moves you forward in the pathway but does not by itself confer board certification; that requires completing Parts 1, 2, and 3. Once fully certified, physicists maintain their credential through ABR Continuing Certification, which includes professional standing requirements, 75 qualifying CME/CE/Self-Directed Educational Project credits per rolling three-year period, and one Practice Quality Improvement project or equivalent per rolling three-year period. Newly certified diplomates first meet these education and improvement requirements in year four, and the annual Continuing Certification fee is USD 205. These maintenance obligations apply to full certification, not to Part 2 itself.

To understand whether pursuing the full pathway makes financial and career sense, see Is the ABR-NMP-P2 Certification Worth It? and the related ABR-NMP-P2 Salary Guide, which draws on AAPM survey data and distinguishes medical physicist compensation from nuclear medicine technologist roles rather than citing a single invented figure.

Scheduling Prep Once Eligibility Is Confirmed

Once your eligibility is confirmed and you've registered, the practical question becomes how to sequence your remaining study time against the five domains above. A reasonable approach is to front-load the domains with the most calculation-heavy content - Radiation Measurements and PET & Hybrid - earlier in your schedule, since these benefit from repeated practice with the ABR constants list and calculator workflow, then move into Single Photon Imaging Systems and Clinical Procedures, and reserve final weeks for Radiation Protection, Safety, Professionalism and Ethics alongside full-length timed review.

For a structured walkthrough of this kind of preparation sequencing, see the ABR-NMP-P2 Study Guide, and for a condensed final-review resource, the ABR-NMP-P2 Cheat Sheet summarizes must-know facts across all five domains. You can also work through original, exam-mapped questions at the main practice test site to test your readiness before exam day.

Frequently Asked Questions