EM Fellowship Boards

[deleted958798]

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[Tikied]

Recently, I contacted the Osteopathic Emergency Medicine Board about changing the requirements to allow those who have completed FM residency and an EM fellowship to sit for the boards. They are considering it and I submitted a lot of documentation to support this. Having done all my electives in the ED in addition to my EM fellowship, we have equal training in addition to the extra OB and Peds that EM residents have. There are many ED physicians who are board certified in EM after only completing an intern year that were grandfathered in so this proves it is not about the residency. Family Medicine Docs used to be the physicians in the ED in the past even. Point is, if you are a DO, please reach out to the Osteopathic Board of Emergency Medicine and demand they allow FM trained docs who complete an EM fellowship to sit for the boards. Contact info below:

312-202-8293
[email protected]

I'll buy you a coffee if you do this for the allopaths as well.

 

[FrustratedFamDoc]

These organizations are all political and about helping their own, supposedly. Contacting your local congressman may bear fruit.

I applaud your efforts, but I wouldn't expect derm to open MOHS fellowships to family docs any time soon, and same thing with this. They're already facing a glut of EM docs flooding the market thanks to all the new positions. I'm not sure they want to open the door for FM as well.

 

[EMhawkeye]

I have made multiple attempts and the ABEM refuses to even hear me out. I will not stop trying to get both to change. The good news is you can take the DO boards as an MD now. I never gave up and got the COMLEX to change their requirements for step 3 and took that before I was a resident. The trick is just not going away and continuing to be a thorne in their sides until they concede.

So there is a pathway for this with the aboem?

 

[dr_shark]

Recently, I contacted the Osteopathic Emergency Medicine Board about changing the requirements to allow those who have completed FM residency and an EM fellowship to sit for the boards. They are considering it and I submitted a lot of documentation to support this. Having done all my electives in the ED in addition to my EM fellowship, we have equal training in addition to the extra OB and Peds that EM residents have. There are many ED physicians who are board certified in EM after only completing an intern year that were grandfathered in so this proves it is not about the residency. Family Medicine Docs used to be the physicians in the ED in the past even. Point is, if you are a DO, please reach out to the Osteopathic Board of Emergency Medicine and demand they allow FM trained docs who complete an EM fellowship to sit for the boards. Contact info below:

312-202-8293
[email protected]

Good on you dude! Looking forward to hearing more in the future.

 

[Lexdiamondz]

UPDATE: I have received an immediate denial of my request from the VP of GME who is not a physician. I have requested a review of this again as I felt it was not appropriate. I have also reached out to my Senators, Representatives, Governor, and the White House about the issue.. We will wait and see. I urge you all to do the same. The more pressure we put, the more likely it can happen. Again, I successfully convinced the NBOME to change their policy on Level 3 COMLEX and took those boards before starting residency. Persistence is key.

It's just strange that some docs are EM board certified with only a traditional rotating intern year and clinical practice, but 3 years of FM Residency and a 1 year EM Fellowship is "not the right training".

Well, you have to consider that those people were EM boarded >30 years ago, possibly before you were even born.

The merits of a 1 year "fellowship" in a specialty that has existed with a separate certifying board for 43 years has been discussed ad-nauseam so I'll leave it at that. You aren't by any means the first person to try and lobby for board certification through a backdoor and are highly unlikely to convince anyone to do it now, particularly when there is arguably an excess of EM grads coming out of residency and little need for people to become credentialed by alternate means.

 

[VA Hopeful Dr]

Point is, it was done before and if it’s good enough to board those who only did an intern year, then it’s good enough to board those who do an ER fellowship after residency. It’s all politics and has absolutely nothing to do with the training.

That's some pretty poor reasoning there.

 

[VA Hopeful Dr]

But it’s true. Not poor at all. If you do an ER fellowship after FM residency you have just as much training as ER residents with the extra OB and Peds, plus more training than those who were allowed to sit for the boards through the practice track.

No you really don't. The EM program at my med school has 112 weeks in the ED. That's over 2 years of just ED time. A 1 year fellowship doesnt even get you half of that. My residency program had 2 months of EM and another 2 months of elective time across all 3 years.

That doesn't add up to 112 weeks.


That's said, my original objection was to you complaining about people who were able to use the practice track 30 plus years ago. Just because something was a good idea 30 years ago doesn't make it a good idea now.

 

[VA Hopeful Dr]

I disagree buddy, just because your med school does it that way doesn’t mean the rest of the country does. Furthermore, as an attending in the ER currently, I can tell you that those who do FM to EM fellowship are far better trained in my actual experience. Many of those who did the practice track remain board certified to this day and continue to practice. You will learn once you get out of med school into the real world. Until then, go find another forum to troll.

I've been an FM attending for 10 years...

 

[VA Hopeful Dr]

I disagree buddy, just because your med school does it that way doesn’t mean the rest of the country does. Furthermore, as an attending in the ER currently, I can tell you that those who do FM to EM fellowship are far better trained in my actual experience. Many of those who did the practice track remain board certified to this day and continue to practice. You will learn once you get out of med school into the real world. Until then, go find another forum to troll.

Also, there are 2 other EM programs in my state. One has 25 months of dedicated ED time, the other has 100 weeks of dedicated ED time.

So maybe the other 49 states have much weaker EM programs than poor old SC but I'd be surprised.

 

[Lexdiamondz]

But it’s true. Not poor at all. If you do an ER fellowship after FM residency you have just as much training as ER residents with the extra OB and Peds, plus more training than those who were allowed to sit for the boards through the practice track.

This is factually untrue.

I attended a 4 year program with approximately 30 mos of dedicated emergency medicine training, 6 mos of critical care, as well as rotations in trauma, anesthesia, ENT, orthopaedics, hand surgery and toxicology.

It is mathematically impossible for someone with an unregulated and unaccredited 12 month fellowship after doing a three-year family medicine residency to achieve those numbers. Combined ACGME EM/FM and EM/IM residencies are 5 years long, and yet somehow you think you did a better job through a backdoor path in 4? The math ain't mathing here.

I disagree buddy, just because your med school does it that way doesn’t mean the rest of the country does. Furthermore, as an attending in the ER currently, I can tell you that those who do FM to EM fellowship are far better trained in my actual experience. Many of those who did the practice track remain board certified to this day and continue to practice. You will learn once you get out of med school into the real world. Until then, go find another forum to troll.

That person you replied to has been an attending physician since before either of us started medical school so...yeah

Regarding whether FM to EM fellowship trained physicians are far better trained - that's simply your opinion based off of very limited real-world experience.

I will say this though - considering you were completely unaware of well-known textbooks and board study materials utilized in Emergency Medicine until several weeks ago when you had to ask on our forum what resources to use on your questionable-at-best ABPS exam....I'm not sure your experiences or opinions really count for much.