Time to reform the ABP!

[Thrombus]

This is getting to be a joke. The MOC is ridiculous and only contributes towards increasing costs of medicine and lining the ABP pocketbooks.

The numerous fellowship/subspecialty board credentialling is also a joke. We are starting to hear from clients that they require a board certified dermpath/hemepath etc. to read out their specimens. They are doing this to "protect themselves" (of course they are selling out to a lower bidder and client billing).

WHY MUST OUR SPECIALTY REQUIRE ONE TO HOLD DOWN A CHAIR FOR 1 YEAR, FOR CHUMP CHANGE, AND HAVING TO MOVE ONE'S FAMILY ON OUR OWN DIME, UNDER SOME ACADEMIC WHO DOES 15-20 MINUTES OF WORK A DAY IN ORDER TO BE "CERTIFIED"?

WHY CAN'T WE GO TAKE THE DAMN TEST AND IF WE PASS WITH FLYING COLORS, BE CERTIFIED?

WHY ARE WE CONTINUING TO PUMP OUT PATHOLOGISTS WHO WILL LINE THE POCKETS OF CORPORATE SUITS AND HAVE A SUBSERVIANT RELATIONSHIP TO OTHER DOCS?

This field is burying itself!

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[deleted314957]

This is getting to be a joke. The MOC is ridiculous and only contributes towards increasing costs of medicine and lining the ABP pocketbooks.

The numerous fellowship/subspecialty board credentialling is also a joke. We are starting to hear from clients that they require a board certified dermpath/hemepath etc. to read out their specimens. They are doing this to "protect themselves" (of course they are selling out to a lower bidder and client billing).

WHY MUST OUR SPECIALTY REQUIRE ONE TO HOLD DOWN A CHAIR FOR 1 YEAR, FOR CHUMP CHANGE, AND HAVING TO MOVE ONE'S FAMILY ON OUR OWN DIME, UNDER SOME ACADEMIC WHO DOES 15-20 MINUTES OF WORK A DAY IN ORDER TO BE "CERTIFIED"?

WHY CAN'T WE GO TAKE THE DAMN TEST AND IF WE PASS WITH FLYING COLORS, BE CERTIFIED?

WHY ARE WE CONTINUING TO PUMP OUT PATHOLOGISTS WHO WILL LINE THE POCKETS OF CORPORATE SUITS AND HAVE A SUBSERVIANT RELATIONSHIP TO OTHER DOCS?

This field is burying itself!

When i was starting out you could sit for a board without a fellowship. You just needed to document some significant experience. just about everyone with cytopath boards my age (>60) did not do a fellowship.
dermpath was the exception because it is a joint board.

25 years ago we had clients who insisted on derm path only for their cases.

 

[yaah]

Because every specialty does this same thing and this is part of the whole nebulous "quality" stuff that hospitals want. Your beef is really not with the ABP if your beef is the existence of these things.

 

[KCShaw]

Really, every board does this? I'm not that familiar with most other boards or their fellowships.

That said, the beef still seems to have some validity, regardless of who it's directed at. Seeing as how the ABP made its own decision about this while also representing? answering to? supporting? pathologists/pathology as a medical specialty, I think it's pretty reasonable for pathologists to direct the mess back at it. There's no reason to pretend pathology is like The Other Specialties in this, when it's markedly different in most other aspects. There's also an element of "if your friends jumped off a cliff, would you?" Just because others do something, or there's a media suggestion to do something, or politics urges doing something, etc., doesn't make it a good idea. Doesn't even make it not a bad idea. The implementation might still even be illegal, but that's its own lawsuit.

 

[Glass Pusher]

I feel like nearly every field anymore DOES require you be board certified in what you practice to get paid. The bigger issue I see is that we now have many younger pathologists ending up board certified in a number of things just to obtain a job, which will entail a much larger board maintenance burden. In essentially all these other fields, fellows finish training to practice in their area of expertise. In pathology, more and more (over 30% per last ASCP survey) are completing multiple fellowships. Many of these fellowships have no practical relation to each other. In addition, if one goes the academic/large center sub-specialty route, you'll never even use your second fellowship (or most of your residency for that matter). And if you practice in a more general setting, it's very likely you could've gotten by with about 3 months (or none) of your fellowship instead of losing the opportunity cost of that whole year to sign out GI biopsies most of the day.

In essence, the poor job market has been a boon to the ABP with markedly increased board takers.

 

[LADoc00]

I can say without a doubt the academics Pathologists that went to bat for us in refusing to create more subspec boards like GI or GU did us a huge favor. They saw what happened in Dermpath and knew if GI or GU was allowed to be a B.C. there would be a way for GI and GU clinicians to squeeze their way in and either control it or even sign the cases out themselves.

The fight over this was raging about a decade ago and Im happy the side of good won. We cannot throw ABP down the toilet, but we can put someone in charge with common sense.

 

[malchik]

I can say without a doubt the academics Pathologists that went to bat for us in refusing to create more subspec boards like GI or GU did us a huge favor. They saw what happened in Dermpath and knew if GI or GU was allowed to be a B.C. there would be a way for GI and GU clinicians to squeeze their way in and either control it or even sign the cases out themselves.

The fight over this was raging about a decade ago and Im happy the side of good won. We cannot throw ABP down the toilet, but we can put someone in charge with common sense.

Thank goodness GI and GU clinicians don't control their pathology..oh, wait.

 

[yaah]

Talk to some other clinicians about their requirements - they are all different. But ER for example also has a ten year cycle and every 2 years is another semi-exam based on recent literature followed by a larger one every 10 years. CME acquisition is a part of this as well. Pathology doesn't even have oral exams which is somewhat unique. And a lot of these specialties (like ER) have "special certification" programs in subsets of practice like ultrasound.