Articles Pathway

[DOswag]

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Yes was able to get back on and complete the few I had left 😮‍💨

 

[Orgone]

Headline currently posted on the ABPN articles pathway website:

There was an issue with our article exam software platform that prevented access to the exam overnight Saturday through the early morning of Sunday December 15th. Access was restored at 9:30am CT on December 15th.
Due to the unforeseen and unexpected down time, we will extend the article exam testing deadline by one full day. Article exams may be accessed now through the end of the day (11:59 pm) on Monday December 16th.
We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience."

Although the language below that says the due date is now December 17th so I think the ABPN could use to do a PIP activity improving their understanding of what is commonly meant by a due date.

 

[calvnandhobbs68]

I mean I do things as last minute as anyone but come on now. You've had longer than the last week to do these articles. All the bellyaching and talking about lawyers...I'm in the facebook group too it's ridiculous.

You can see the statement above now, so you get a whole extra day out of the 2 whole years you've had to do it.

 

[splik]

I mean I do things as last minute as anyone but come on now. You've had longer than the last week to do these articles. All the bellyaching and talking about lawyers...I'm in the facebook group too it's ridiculous.

You can see the statement above now, so you get a whole extra day out of the 2 whole years you've had to do it.

This reflects the collective anger at feeling compelled to participate in the epic scam that is MOC compounded by their utter incompetence.

 

[Trismegistus4]

I am in the same boat.

By standard convention 12/15/2024 by midnight means by midnight of that day. (i.e. the very last moment of that day)

Legally speaking the term they used is considered ambiguous and in proceedings will favor the standard convention or give benefit of doubt to the person signing the contract, not the party that used an ambiguous term. I have already spoken to an attorney. I took off this weekend to complete this task and completed about 25 of them by the end of the day yesterday. Even if they open it back up for a few days, I am still pissed off.


If they don't fix their error, they may be hearing from some lawyers.

I believe that until the update we're all discussing, all the website said was "by 12/15/2024." Nothing about midnight or any other time of day. Which, to me, taken literally, would meant that 11:59:59pm on 12/14/2024 would be the latest you could finish.

However, I could see why some might consider it ambiguous and would want to contact them to clarify, and I certainly think it's best for them to be as explicit as possible, meaning if what they meant was "by 11:59pm on 12/14/2024," they should say that, not just "by 12/15/2024."

 

[finalpsychyear]

I believe that until the update we're all discussing, all the website said was "by 12/15/2024." Nothing about midnight or any other time of day. Which, to me, taken literally, would meant that 11:59:59pm on 12/14/2024 would be the latest you could finish.

However, I could see why some might consider it ambiguous and would want to contact them to clarify, and I certainly think it's best for them to be as explicit as possible, meaning if what they meant was "by 11:59pm on 12/14/2024," they should say that, not just "by 12/15/2024."

I mean i called them for clarification and they told me wrong info. Either way I think for the next block im going to start some monthly byb article club to make it more tolerable.

 

[Stagg737]

I just need to do the PIP by eoy. Can a supervisor just do a pre and post eval for me and i am good ?

Doesn't even need to be a supervisor from my understanding. I filled a couple out for colleagues who have been attendings much longer than I have and doesn't seem like they've had issues with it.

 

[Sushirolls]

Makes no sense to have 12/31 be the due date for CME and SA.
But have articles due on 12/15 or 16 or now 17 whatever.
Should be end of year for all of it.

The concept and differentiation of SA from CME is also pointless, too.

MOC is not value added, and adds to the scales of bureaucracy and the pull towards burn out. I look forward to the pre-step before retirement, wherein, I unburden myself from what has been*.

*Going to save that lexicon for the next few decades, and I bet younger generations will be clueless, but possible Gen Z and older will catch on 20 years from now. LOL

 

[finalpsychyear]

Makes no sense to have 12/31 be the due date for CME and SA.
But have articles due on 12/15 or 16 or now 17 whatever.
Should be end of year for all of it.

The concept and differentiation of SA from CME is also pointless, too.

MOC is not value added, and adds to the scales of bureaucracy and the pull towards burn out. I look forward to the pre-step before retirement, wherein, I unburden myself from what has been*.

*Going to save that lexicon for the next few decades, and I bet younger generations will be clueless, but possible Gen Z and older will catch on 20 years from now. LOL

What also doesnt make sense is if one is board certified based on the exam through end of 2026 why are they doing 30 articles for 2022-2024 then again in 2025-2026.... Feels like they get to charge more fees for 2022-2024 plus 2025 and 2026 when you are already board certifed through 2026...

will be a BYB journal/book club monthly meeting in my mind going forward.

 

[Sushirolls]

Probably something ridiculous as: The IT guys would have charged more to structure the app to account for the variability of original 10 year certification cycles. So they forced it.

 

[finalpsychyear]

Probably something ridiculous as: The IT guys would have charged more to structure the app to account for the variability of original 10 year certification cycles. So they forced it.

Yeah your probably right. Just adds to my desire to get of medicine in the nex 4-5 years. At this point, it is simply a means to financial freedom though i know i have helped some people in the process so maybe its the negativity coming out. I frankly derive 0 satisfaction esp from a population who is only looking for a quick fix which is essentially most of medicine now. If you paid me 1/4 of my salary to count pennies out of a bathtub for 30 ish hours a week i would likely consider it some days.

 

[calvnandhobbs68]

Yeah your probably right. Just adds to my desire to get of medicine in the nex 4-5 years. At this point, it is simply a means to financial freedom though i know i have helped some people in the process so maybe its the negativity coming out. I frankly derive 0 satisfaction esp from a population who is only looking for a quick fix which is essentially most of medicine now. If you paid me 1/4 of my salary to count pennies out of a bathtub for 30 ish hours a week i would likely consider it some days.

Doing 30 articles every 3 years and some BS "self improvement" stuff is what's adding to that? It's probably <4 hours a year of actual stuff to do...everyone just ends up cramming it into the last week before it's due of course. I mean the Category 1 CMEs I just click through APA CME stuff while I'm watching TV....

I get it, it's annoying and if you don't like it you can always just do the NBPAS certification if you can get away with it...but for all the griping I hear about this you'd think people were getting their fingernails pulled out by ABPN. You can also just take the exam every 10 years like you always had to do if you don't want to do the articles. I do think the fees are ridiculous.

 

[Sushirolls]

It takes far more than 4 hours. And I did try for expediency.

I have slaved away an excess of my time in my life to BS things. As one creeps ever closer to the grave, and reflects on medical school, residency, and other life experiences that encapsulates the experience of human life, one keenly observes the rising premium that is time. And when I'm forced to waste time it is quite irritating.

The exam Q10 years also wasn't supposed to be there. MOC isn't supposed to be there. Its like the IRS. Neither should exist, but we continue to let people water the Bureaucracy weed and here we are. Less time - and that means less freedom.

 

[calvnandhobbs68]

It takes far more than 4 hours. And I did try for expediency.

I have slaved away an excess of my time in my life to BS things. As one creeps ever closer to the grave, and reflects on medical school, residency, and other life experiences that encapsulates the experience of human life, one keenly observes the rising premium that is time. And when I'm forced to waste time it is quite irritating.

The exam Q10 years also wasn't supposed to be there. MOC isn't supposed to be there. Its like the IRS. Neither should exist, but we continue to let people water the Bureaucracy weed and here we are. Less time - and that means less freedom.

I literally did the last 10 articles in between sets while I was working out in the morning for a few days. I mean I'm sorry it took that long but it doesn't need to. CME articles you can do while watching TV lol. The PIP stuff I can literally just pull 5 ADHD patients charts, record if I gave them teachers Conners, parent Conners, measured weight and BP (4 quality measures), then do the same thing in 2 years.....

Totally get the not wanting to waste time (I hate writing notes) but again if MOC is somehow a significant factor in wanting to "get out of medicine"....I mean the reason boards switched to article based MOC was because people didn't want to take an exam every 10 years.

 

[comp1]

Definitely don't relate to MOC in particular causing someone to want to get out of medicine, but also not supporting the argument that it's only 4 hours. It's a good deal more than that. And the reason for the SA differential is that they have a financial incentive for SA CME and not for other CME.

 

[calvnandhobbs68]

Definitely don't relate to MOC in particular causing someone to want to get out of medicine, but also not supporting the argument that it's only 4 hours. It's a good deal more than that. And the reason for the SA differential is that they have a financial incentive for SA CME and not for other CME.

I'm saying 3-4 hours a year (and I honestly think that's stretching it)...so maybe 9-12 hours over each 3 year cycle. You're taking longer than a whole day of work to skim over 30 articles and answer 5 questions each, do the CME and pick 5 patients charts to review?

 

[comp1]

Yes. I just did the pilot so maybe it somehow got much, much better, but the questions were so horrifically phrased that I had to re-read the articles several times each to figure out what the "trick" with each question was. And almost every question had some sort of double negative or order of operations trick in place specifically to limit skimming. I'm only talking about the articles. I do the feedback PIP which I do agree is minimally time involved. Obviously the rest of CME requires 40 hours above state licensure, so I'm not even including that. I'm just saying the articles indeed took more than 12 hours, a good deal more. Had the questions been actually phrased in common English, maybe it could be 4.

 

[Merovinge]

Yes. I just did the pilot so maybe it somehow got much, much better, but the questions were so horrifically phrased that I had to re-read the articles several times each to figure out what the "trick" with each question was. And almost every question had some sort of double negative or order of operations trick in place specifically to limit skimming. I'm only talking about the articles. I do the feedback PIP which I do agree is minimally time involved. Obviously the rest of CME requires 40 hours above state licensure, so I'm not even including that. I'm just saying the articles indeed took more than 12 hours, a good deal more. Had the questions been actually phrased in common English, maybe it could be 4.

Many were well worded, but some did include complex double negatives that I had to take a step back from and reorient my brain. That said, we all know how to answer complicated MC questions. Read the stem, twice if you need to, then read all the answers, then look into the text for the answer. With control-f, I got through 50 articles (due to double board) in just over 10 hours, including some articles that I read independent of answering the questions. If you read all the articles first and then went to answer the questions it would take quite some time, but you also gained the knowledge of reading the articles...

 

[Psych19]

Many were well worded, but some did include complex double negatives that I had to take a step back from and reorient my brain. That said, we all know how to answer complicated MC questions. Read the stem, twice if you need to, then read all the answers, then look into the text for the answer. With control-f, I got through 50 articles (due to double board) in just over 10 hours, including some articles that I read independent of answering the questions. If you read all the articles first and then went to answer the questions it would take quite some time, but you also gained the knowledge of reading the articles...

That would equate to about 12 mins average per article/quiz, not including food or bathroom breaks. That's impressive intellectual stamina.

 

[calvnandhobbs68]

That would equate to about 12 mins average per article/quiz, not including food or bathroom breaks. That's impressive intellectual stamina.

I mean some of them you should probably just know the answers to. There were at least 3 off the top of my head about conditions/guidelines (anorexia, autism, the cochrane nicotine article) that I straight up just answered the questions and didn't read the article at all.

The others, if you start from the question and just skim to the area of the paper that has it, you can usually find it in 1-2 minutes. Like think about how scientific papers are laid out....if they're asking you a question about the patient population go to the tables with the patient population characteristics. If they're asking questions about recommendations or summary, go straight to the discussion.

Again I get it's annoying but all the raging about doing 5-10 questions a month about halfway relevant journal articles is a little much.

 

[clausewitz2]

That would equate to about 12 mins average per article/quiz, not including food or bathroom breaks. That's impressive intellectual stamina.

There was a fair amount of variance but I got through a number of the relevant articles in substantially less than 12 minutes. Mostly the ones I thought were dumb or less relevant to me.

I am a little worried about folks saying that reading 10 articles a year is too much of a burden. Surely that should be pretty close to the lowest end of what one might be expected to read to stay current.

 

[Merovinge]

That would equate to about 12 mins average per article/quiz, not including food or bathroom breaks. That's impressive intellectual stamina.

I would estimate completing the questions faster than the average psychiatrist, but again this is all work that was pounded through my med school (which to it's credit was very EBM focused), residency, and fellowship. If someone was less academically inclined in their background, I guess it could feel more foreign. All MDs really should be comfortable reading scientific journal articles and extracting the components relevant to clinical practice. If anything I think this is better ongoing education than studying for a several hundred question MC test every 10 years whilst also being much less stressful.

 

[DOswag]

Way easier to do the clinical review. I paid for one of the PIP products and it gave me a sheet where I was supposed to go through the charts of 5 patients with MDD and check off if I did/documented various things.

I documented all the various things and had no room to improvement via their tool, so I didn't really see a reason to go back through and actually do the second 5 chart reviews, since I know I already document/do those things with all of my patients as part of my intake template. I guess I will if audited.

So I'm going through previous patients and looking at the pdf of the initial assessment form, I'm checking pretty much most of the boxes as I already to the things listed. If I don't have anything to add when looking through the performance improvement, do I just fill out the 2nd reassessment forms and check the same boxes and call it a day, is that acceptable?

 

[FlowRate]

So I'm going through previous patients and looking at the pdf of the initial assessment form, I'm checking pretty much most of the boxes as I already to the things listed. If I don't have anything to add when looking through the performance improvement, do I just fill out the 2nd reassessment forms and check the same boxes and call it a day, is that acceptable?

I mean technically you're supposed to review 5 new charts after watching the education module, but they don't even have you write the MRN on the tracking sheets so....