MOC – how should we define maintenance

Maintenance – the process of maintaining or preserving someone or something, or the state of being maintained. Our certification documents that we have trained (in my case in Internal Medicine) and that we can pass a test on the breadth of Internal Medicine knowledge. We accept that the ABIM has developed a test the evaluates our entire exposure to the many diseases and treatments that reflect our patients. The idea of Maintenance of Certification is that over time knowledge changes and thus we need to update our knowledge, our diagnostic processes and our treatments. Internists often care for differing types of patients in 2015 than when they trained. Most internists have now differentiated into hospital based, office based or subspecialty based practice. Each type of internist therefore has different maintenance needs. As I have written previously, and actually discussed with ABIM leadership, I favor focusing primarily on what we need to maintain our excellence. How can one do that? We, as a profession, need to have practicing physicians prioritize new information as essential knowledge. After defining this list, many organizations can develop educational activities to help us learn these advances. Finally, ABIM can construct testing (perhaps open book) that documents that we have learned the new stuff. Several examples that I might include: 1. For inpatient medicine, fluid resuscitation for acute pancreatitis has advanced dramatically. Some articles suggest ...
Source: DB's Medical Rants - Category: Internal Medicine Authors: Tags: Medical Rants Source Type: blogs