Author's Reply to “Readers Respond to ‘Board Certification – A Hot Topic for Patients and Physicians’”

Dr. Marmelzat[1] argues that patients who might prefer a board-certified physician would also prefer a Rolls-Royce to a Toyota, suggesting that he acknowledges that a board-certified physician would be better. Interestingly enough, he wonders about patients' ability to distinguish between a good physician and a physician assistant. Ms. Fore,[1] both a nurse and a physician assistant, is proud of the consistent certification and recertification that her profession has put in place to assure the public of the level of competence of a certified physician assistant.

Concerns about the relevance of recertification to practice and flexibility of the self-evaluation of knowledge and practice assessment components are actively being addressed by the American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM) and other boards. We urge the authors of these letters and others who are interested in learning about the continuing expansion of options that are available for physicians in general internal medicine as well as in all of the subspecialties of internal medicine to visit the ABIM Web site. These options provide for Maintenance of Certification (MOC) credit for continuing education, tools developed by specialty societies, practice assessment credit for clinical data received from health plans, medical practice groups and other credible sources, and significant expansion of the topics for the ABIM-produced practice assessment and self-evaluation tools. The ABIM Board of Directors, which is composed of elected members of the profession and representing all of the subspecialties of internal medicine, continues to actively review continuing education and practice assessment programs, including Medscape and other online resources, for MOC credit that is based on a strict and consistent set of standards. The Board recognizes its professional responsibility to set high standards for public credibility as well as to create options that are practical for physicians to achieve. By keeping these twin goals firmly in mind, the ABIM can provide a professionally based accountability method and avoid the need for onerous and less relevant government regulation.

Readers are encouraged to respond to George Lundberg, MD, Editor of MedGenMed, for the editor's eye only or for possible publication via email: glundberg@medscape.net