Colleagues,
After making the ABA aware of our petition, they claimed that MOCA reform would be announced in the form of "MOCA 2.0" in the 2015 newsletter. This has just been published, and while some future concept of MOCA 2.0 is alluded to, the status quo is completely unchanged for now.
What has changed, however, are the acronyms and names of the MOCA modules that currently exist. Why these changes were felt necessary is anyone's guess, but the idea of well-paid ABA executives spending reimbursed time in a room deciding that "Life-long Learning and Self-Assessment" should now be abbreviated "LLS" instead of "LLSA" is frankly ridiculous. Why should the "Cognitive Exam" now be labeled "Assessment of Knowledge, Judgment, and Skills?" What skills are being assessed by sitting in front of a computer screen for hours? We find this acronym-shuffling insulting to our collective intelligence.
Clearly, this is not reform. Whatever MOCA 2.0 will be, we are pessimistic that it will be a real, meaningful change. The costs and time burdens are likely to remain unacceptably high.
We have edited the language of the petition, by adding a paragraph stating our belief that MOC and MOCA should be eliminated entirely (if you do not agree with this language, contact me and I will remove your name from the petition). We worded the original petition the way we did, because the ABA must act under the guidelines laid out by the ABMS. They therefore cannot completely eliminate MOCA and stay a member board of the ABMS. While we feel that the ABMS serves zero purpose and that the ABA gains nothing by staying with it, we wanted to petition them for a change they could actually make and still stay within the parameters of the ABMS' MOC guidelines. We wanted our request to be able to be viewed as offered in good faith.
So far, our efforts have been met with elimination of letters from acronyms, and nothing more. So we encourage you to continue to reach out to your colleagues and spread the word that MOCA must be radically changed at minimum, and ideally completely eliminated. Visit our Facebook site at
www.facebook.com/changemoca, follow on Twitter @changemoca, and use #changemoca.
Finally, we want to spread awareness of the new board certification entity, the National Board of Physicians and Surgeons (
nbpas.org). Neither Tom nor I have any financial relationship with NBPAS. It was founded as an alternative board certification entity that stresses the importance of lifelong learning, one that recognizes that MOC is not founded in any evidence, is too burdensome, and is far too costly. NBPAS membership is available to those who have already been certified by their mother board (the ABA in our case), and maintain a requisite amount of CME.
A recent presentation by the founder of NBPAS, Dr. Paul Teirstein, is incredibly informative for those who have no yet watched it-
https://nbpas.org/debate-on-maintenance-of-certification/ . This presentation shines a light on the very poor quality of the "evidence" that is used to support MOC by the ABMS boards.
We encourage all of you to contact your medical executive committees to request that NBPAS be recognized alongside ABMS boards as a legitimate certification entity. Some materials to assist in that effort are available here-
https://nbpas.org/sample-letters-and-powerpoints/ .
Thank you again for your time and effort. We must continue to pressure the ABA for meaningful change, and if no such change is in the offering, we hope you will join us in our pledge to forego our ABA membership now that a viable alternative exists.
Remember also to submit your thoughts about MOCA to the ABA at this link-
http://moca.theaba.org/fg.pl .
Sincerely,
Oren Bernstein and Tom Gallen
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