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So to summarize some of what has transpired at the ABIM to maintain their physician testing monopoly:
- The ABIM secretly created the ABIM Foundation in 1989 for the purpose of laundering over $70 million of physician testing fees from 1990-2007 for various personal and political agendas, including the purchase of a 2-bedroom luxury condominium, art collection, and offshoring of Cayman Island retirement funds.
- They published a white paper in 2002 in two major medical journals, the Annals of Internal Medicine and the Lancet, entitled "Medical Professionalism in the New Millennium: A Physician Charter" (which, given these revelations, should both be retracted in my opinion).
- They used a strongman convicted of impersonating a police officer and carrying an unregistered firearm as their Director of Test Security with access to physicians' most sensitive personal information.
- They forced a physician who admitted to wrongdoing to pay $15,000 to remain board certified on the condition that physician also serve as an informant.
- They continue to drag a vulnerable physician through the court system for what will be at least eight years to maintain their monopoly and hide the truth.
The American Board of Internal Medicine needs to be held accountable to working US physicians and the public for their actions. I believe their irresponsible and undisclosed financial and political dealings, paired with these mafia-like tactics, deserve full transparency and appropriate judicial scrutiny.
Physicians deserve better. The public deserves better.
It's past time we shine a bright light on this racket.
-Wes
14 comments:
It's no wonder the AMA refused to push for an independent audit of the ABIM and its illegit Foundation. I mean the big executive piggy bank - the one with the bogus Iowa domicile. Sounds like the ABIM needs more time to get their servers acid washed and paper archives shredded.
I wonder if Lynn Langdon spent all her 2012 bonus money yet? How much was it 300K? Or is she still on the ABIM hush-money list along with Ben Mannes and Hank S*. What was that bonus money for again? See "other expenses" on the tax forms to learn how ABIM hides money and its uses.
http://drwes.blogspot.com/2016/03/when-abim-comes-knocking.html
Amazing that the ABIM still does not "confirm or deny" the hiring of two corporate hitmen in 2007/2008-? and their team of twenty-seven other undisclosed contractors to do ABIM's secret dirty work.
(*See footnotes to ABIM's Art collection.)
https://drwes.blogspot.com/2017/11/the-history-of-abim-art-collection-us.html
AMERICAN BOARD OF INTERNAL MEDICINE
510 WALNUT STREET NO 1700, PHILADELPHIA, PA 19106 http://WWW.ABIM.ORG
Total Revenue
$54,454,584
Total Expenses
$59,210,053
Net Assets
$-47,886,654
Organizations Filed Purposes:
Executives Listed on Filing
Total Salary includes financial earnings, benefits, and all related organization earnings listed on tax filing
Name Title Hours Per Week Total Salary
CHRISTINE K CASSEL PRESIDENT - CEO (FORMER) 35.00 $1,207,893
LYNN LANGDON SR. VICE PRESIDENT / COO 35.00 $546,174
ERIC HOLMBOE MD SENIOR VICE PRES/CMO (FORMER) 35.00 $468,027
JOHN DAVIS II SENIOR VICE PRES/CIO (FORMER) 35.00 $423,358
REBECCA LIPNER PHD SVP OF PSYCHOMETRISCS 35.00 $405,555
VINCENT MANDES SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT/CFO 35.00 $403,048
WILLIAM IOBST VP, ACADEMIC AFFAIRS 35.00 $397,728
RICHARD J BARON PRESIDENT-CEO 35.00 $365,135
ELIZABETH BLAYLOCK SVP PIM DEVELOPMENT 35.00 $356,835
PAUL PONIATOWSKI MS VP TEST DEVELOPMENT 35.00 $327,853
LORIE SLASS SVP COMMUNICATIONS 35.00 $293,053
LESLIE TUCKER VP OF POLICY 35.00 $273,866
DONALD KOOKER VP INFORMATION TECH. 35.00 $253,420
LORNA LYNN DIR, PRACTICE ASSESSMENT 35.00 $248,410
ROBIN GUILLE DIR OF PSYCHOMETRIC OPER'S 35.00 $206,365
VERONICA JONES SENIOR DIRECTOR OPERATIONS 35.00 $193,240
PATRICIA M CONOLLY DIRECTOR - SECRETARY 5.00 $57,507
DAVID H JOHNSON DIRECTOR - CHAIR 5.00 $47,523
CHRISTINE A SINSKY DIRECTOR 5.00 $36,607
JOAN M VON FELDT DIRECTOR 5.00 $30,666
DAVID L COLEMAN DIRECTOR 5.00 $27,635
CLARENCE H BRADDOCK III DIRECTOR - CHAIR-ELECT 5.00 $21,355
RICHARD P SHANNON DIRECTOR 5.00 $21,001
STUART L LINAS DIRECTOR - TREASURER 5.00 $19,106
OLUFUNMILAYO I OLOPADE DIRECTOR 5.00 $14,608
WILLIAM J BREMNER DIRECTOR 5.00 $11,296
HARLAN M KRUMHOLZ DIRECTOR 5.00 $10,470
data for this page was sourced from XML published by IRS (public 990 form dataset) from: https://s3.amazonaws.com/irs-form-990/201531349349303218_public.xml
The court should proceed to discovery and trial quicker imo as ABIM has brought so much suffering and financial distress to Dr. Salas Rushford and so many others. Can't believe that a medical specialty board could have so many corporate thugs on the payroll. So ruthless and violatory toward physicians' -- ignoring human dignity and constitutional rights.
http://www.medtees.com/content/ABIMSalasRushfordObjections.pdf
Nothing will ever change for the institutional Fascist regime at ABIM unless the “ABIM Individuals” (Dr. Baron, Dr. Cassel, Lynn Langdon, Dr. Holmboe, Dr. Coleman, Dr. Von Feldt, and Dr. O’Grady) are forced to testify under oath in US District Court in the Salas Rushford vs ABIM Counterclaim. I believe it would be worth the round trip travel to San Juan to see this person, but expect ABIM’s army of Ballard Spahr attorneys to bury the Court under an avalanche of continuances and other stalling tactics intended to delay these proceedings and deny Dr. Salas Rushford’s right to due process.
The Whisperers
"They forced a physician who admitted to wrongdoing to pay $15,000 to remain board certified on the condition that physician also serve as an informant."
Cassel's Labor Camps? Langdon's Bureau of Investigations? Dicky's Dacha? ABMS' Corporate Stooges?
Take your pick of the various ABIM leaders, it is not far from the mark to say that the ABMS medical specialty boards have degenerated into chaotic, confusing, useless quality cartels. Exercises in corporate fascism with despotic bureaucrats at the wheel.
The question everyone must ask is why is this meltdown of professional and basic human rights happening, and where is it going from here as healthcare takes a plunge into the icy Schuylkill River.
And yes, this unethical closed cabal should have their fake white paper on "professionalism" retracted. Every one of its authors is overdue to be censured for publishing such hypocritical political hysteria. We can see through the rear view mirror it was all about enhancing their corporate bottom line and the ledgers of their lean health partners.
The ABIM Foundation's "seminal report" published after 9/11 was really all about what serves the whims and biases of sick elites via unconscionable social engineering, increased surveillance, and the cruel displacement of tens of millions of patients and hundreds of thousands of physicians, pushing them into ration lines, bottlenecks and indentured labor camps.
MOC is one of the squealing social cogs in their technocratic profit-driven view of the future.
CAVEON TEST SECURITY (Spying on School Children in Chat Rooms)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/debate-over-test-security-vs-student-privacy-rages-in-the-age-of-social-media/2015/03/23/bbac030a-cf0c-11e4-a2a7-9517a3a70506_story.html
ABMS/ABIM/PEARSON/CAVEON's [Highly Irregular] Bureau of Investigations - run by a double felon and scheister to spy on physicians and board review competitors
http://www.medtees.com/blog/MannesLinkedIn.pdf
Big Data and the Hoarding Companies
Google's doing what with my private health records!
https://www.wired.com/story/google-is-slurping-up-health-dataand-it-looks-totally-legal/
https://www.statnews.com/2019/12/03/mayo-clinic-taps-boston-health-tech-leader/?utm_content=buffer9bf35&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=twitter_organic
I did not give permission for ANYONE to slurp up my private health records!
It's time to revisit HIPPA!
Dr Salas Rushford and countless others are victims of the ABIM's, lust for money and power. In Rushford's case he is a victim of pure unadulterated abusive corporate vigilantism in order to maintain their monopoly and control over physicians. One of many such pawns they smashed in their game to dominate the market place and political arenas.
Breaking the Human Spirit - Is MOC a 'method of control' creating a 'mediocrity of character'?
Are the AAMC/ACGME/ABMS culling medical students/residents based on political persuasion and willingness to conform? But conform to what? What is their real vision of the future?
Will the Standard Video Interview be abused and used as a tool for manipulation of who gets accepted into graduate and post graduate education.
SVI: Standardized Video Interview - violation of rights/privacy? Tool of creating conformity and forcing many into to rigid corporate models where the future of healthcare is going to be delivered through/by more "convenient" sources? AI and machine learning aids.
https://students-residents.aamc.org/applying-residency/applying-residencies-eras/aamc-standardized-video-interview/
https://students-residents.aamc.org/applying-residency/applying-residencies-eras/aamc-standardized-video-interview/
Beware of the quality cartel when they speak of standardization; what they covertly mean is
the suppression of humanity and the excellence of the human spirit to discover insights and intelligence beyond the matrix of the conditioned mind.
As physicians are forced to become more like robotic providers and medical robots are generated to be more human, humans have proven over and over that they will kick the pail of milk over and destroy what is wise and what is good chasing false idols. Are the motives pure and simple/limpid as a mountain stream or mostly a muddy feeding frenzy in the slough aiming at outrageous gulps of profit for the big fish on the top. But little for the rest just trying to breathe from the bottom.
The ABIM is invested in destroying the traditional physicians/providers and replacing them with more convenient technocratic tools that they believe will give better medicine and cheaper. The AMA is heavily invested in its codes and data-driven algorithms where joy will be with another poorly-engineered plastic robotic smile like we get from the ABMS executives. Expressions based on the profit model, not charity or real human health and success. Sadly the profit is only for those in the high tower. While the theft of our bank accounts and humanity continues on in the streets.
The future will mostly likely be a continuation of the past where students and physicians are abused just like Dr. Salas Rushford, who was professionally bullied and emotionally tortured by executives of the ABMS/ACGME, who appear to be ruthless to the core. In spite of the recent window dressing and millions of dollars paid to overhaul their badly tarnished images.
ABMS/ACGME/AAMC Live-Subject Experiments and Data Collection
- profit, burnout and the dehumanization of the medical profession
SVI is another failed Milestone®* project brought to you by the AAMC®ACGME®ABMS® accreditation certification continuum.
The SVI pilot program, and outbreak of negative psychological symptoms, was contained to emergency medicine from its inception, based on recommendations from actual clinical physicians within the AMA House of Delegates. It is true that SVI after being introduced in 2016 did not pan out; it failed miserably from the start, but the AAMC says they still stand by their product. It's worth saying again that the same AMA House of Delegates resolved to end mandated MOC. Corrupt elements within the AMA and special interests vetoed that resolution.
Why do they stand by SVI? Are they some of the same reasons the ABMS stands by MOC.
Is it because SVI was/still is another ongoing live-subject experiment gone south, and they are too embarrassed and culpable to admit how wrong and corrupt it has all been.
It's a fact that SVI served as a live-subject experiment for the Accreditation/Certification continuum and their corporate partners. Of course none of them will share real data and facts, but instead double down. The bottom line is SVI still serves them personally and financially as they mine the data and sell it.
This doubling down is significant because we have seen the same cover-up related to MOC.
Remember that MOC/re-certification failed as a voluntary program, because it did not produce the results that it was intended to. Plus it too gave everyone headaches/stress/burnout. There were no good results.
What kind of quality continuum is this that forces inept programs on physicians and the public - programs that bring mega-cash for them and their partners? Profits from husge data streams/professional profiles sold in the continuous certification/registry rackets. Few people know how many ways the ABMS and their corporate partners profit from MOC.
ABMS Solutions, a for profit arm of the ABMS, illustrates this point.
https://www.abmssolutions.com/
https://www.abms.org/about-abms/associate-members/
Scrapping, Dissolving the SVI Program/Scrapping, Dissolving the MOC Program
"Three key reasons for the program’s dissolution: lack of evidence to support the SVI [MOC] as an assessment tool, uncertainty around the cost of the program [MOC], and student [physician] perceptions [MOC]."
Everything above applies to SVI as well as MOC, but MOC is known to be harmful to physicians and patients to the extreme. Studies are suppressed about the "unintended consequences" of MOC.
from
AMA SVI "fading to black"
"Brendan Murphy, News Writer, American Medical Association
Citing a lack of interest among applicants and program directors, the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) announced that a video interview program it had been piloting for emergency medicine residency programs would not continue past the 2020 application cycle.
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The standardized video interview (SVI) was touted as a supplementary tool in the selection of applicants to interview. Since the 2018 Electronic Residency Application Service (ERAS) cycle, the program aimed to measure knowledge of professional behaviors and interpersonal skills and communication, two of the core-competency requirements for success in residency laid out by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME).
After the pilot, the AAMC had hoped to widen the implementation of the project.
“Based on the data collected to date, the AAMC concluded that the SVI is a reliable, valid assessment of behavioral competencies that does not disadvantage individuals or groups,” according to an evaluation summary on the AAMC website. “The decision not to offer the SVI for the ERAS 2021 application cycle is based on lack of interest among the emergency medicine community in continuing to use and research the SVI, as well as an assessment of operational factors necessary for successful expansion of the program.”
Related Coverage
10 most-viewed emergency medicine residency programs in 2019
Opposition from applicants, programs
A letter signed by stakeholders in emergency medicine residency programs called on the AAMC to discontinue the program.
“We understand that the number of applications per applicant to emergency medicine programs has doubled over the past decade, and that this has increased pressure on residency programs to screen which students to invite for in-person interviews,” says the letter, signed by resident and faculty leaders of organizations such as the American Academy of Emergency Medicine, American College of Emergency Physicians, Council of Residency Directors in Emergency Medicine and Emergency Medicine Residents’ Association.
“However, after three years of piloting the SVI, reviewing the data, and hearing from the members of our community, we respectfully oppose further study or use of the SVI.”
That letter lays out three key reasons for the program’s dissolution: lack of evidence to support the SVI as an assessment tool, uncertainty around the cost of the program, and student perceptions.
To support the third point, the letter cites a June 18, 2019, Academic Medicine report, “Applicant Reactions to the AAMC Standardized Video Interview During the 2018 Application Cycle.” The survey determined that “less than one-quarter of applicants agreed that the SVI gave them an opportunity to describe their interpersonal and communication skills or knowledge of professional behavior, and only half agreed that they were able to answer SVI questions based upon past experiences.”
At the 2017 AMA Interim Meeting, the House of Delegates directed the AMA to, among other things, advocate delaying expansion of the SVI to other specialties “until data demonstrates the Association of American Medical Colleges’ stated goal of predicting resident performance.”
AAMC caught red-handed
The AAMC got caught involved with private equity/third-party corporate partnerships - relationships that are/were compromising for their candidates. That is why SVI in part was discontinued (for now).
Corporate corruption is another concern. (Examine the full gamut of AAMC's finances now and over the years, including the real estate history and holdings. Look at the DC District bonds they have procured/issued and what they did with those proceeds to pad the incomes of executives at the AAMC and ERAS.
Look at the complex history of the CEO of HireVue. It is apparent that the AAMC has more than SVI invested in the company. If not, let's open up the books. The AAMC/ERAS needs to open up their books to the public for inspection.
Would the CEOs of the AAMC, ACGME, ABMS, ABIM, HireVue put their privacy and data at risk by submitting to SVI? Not to mention the humiliation of being forced to do it?
I don't think so, unless they were handsomely rewarded.
It's the same with MOC nobody would do it unless their jobs and compensation were on the line. MOC is an illegal abuse of corporate power and everyone should start understanding that.
CEO of HireVue
https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevin-parker-98400a7/
The ABMS and their MOC project is another example of a public trust trade association putting profit and political capital/power above the good of their candidates.
ABMS has long been involved with third-party for-profits and even created their own to enrich themselves. ABMS Solutions and ABMS International only two examples. ABMS Singapore is the clincher - the grand show of sham - with the ABMS' hypocritical and very lucrative offering of a lifetime certification without requiring MOC to that country's physicians. How can they have such a double standard, while US physicians are beat with the fearful cane of MOC and threat associated with it on a continuous basis.
Partnerships with foreign companies leveraging our markets and keeping the MOC gravy train going at the expense of a suffering patient/physician population; this is reckless and shameful. Pearson Vue, Wolters Kluwer, and the PwCs of the world need to be examined by regulators as why these partnerships exist and if they are proper. If they comply with SEC regulations and IRS rulings on tax law. These are clearly monopoly tactics being used to corporate advantage of foreign-based enterprises and capitalized on by monopolistic certification/accreditation trade associations and their false advertising of MOC and the apparent collusion with healthcare industry.
It's time to stop MOC and stop the corruption of the ABMS continuum and their associates.
MOC is a 30-year old pilot study with severe consequences.
Why wasn't MOC stopped early on like SVI? How many negative responses do they need at the ABMS? MOC is far worse than SVI as it is never ending abuse. The negative results are indicated from the inception of MOC. MOC is far-reaching in its negative effects, resulting in devastation to the profession of medicine and integrity of the ABMS.
As the ABIM proposes and introduces the "longitudinal alternative" it is simply more of the same abuse of monopoly power and sham. In fact, longitudinal assessment is the same MOC pig, only presented with a different shade of lipstick. LA is presented with a sloppily put together untried/unverified concept drawn on their money crazed faces with curved line up reminiscent of Batman's nemesis the Joker. Who are these ABMS jokers, really, that they need to maintain their power and continue the executive largess at our expense and the suffering of the public?
This new pathway is even more of a Ponzi scheme with greater collection of data and destruction of rights and privacy. They are welcome to offer CME, but their mandated products are illegal and it shows how corrupt this "not for profit" industry really is.
http://blog.abim.org/abim-quarterly-news-and-notes-fall-2019/
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