Wednesday, October 22, 2008

What It Means to Be "Board Certified"

The American Board of Internal Medicine issued this press release yesterday regarding scam medical boards. I reported on this last October and notified the ABIM about this ploy: pay a few hundred bucks and you can have plenty of alphabet soup after your name and you get an authoritative "certificate" without taking any test.

I applaud them for protecting the value of the term "board certified" and states that have not already done so should enact legislation to protect this term. Patients and doctors alike should feel confident that the term "board certified" conveys special mastery of knowledge and skill in medicine rather than just paying to own a "certificate."

-Wes

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I agree.
What we need is some kind of 'meta-board' that decides which boards can qualify a doctor to be "board certified."