First Exam For Recertification
More than 500 psychiatrists will be eligible for recertification this year, the first among the profession who were initially board certified in 1994 or later and are now required to take an exam every 10 years to maintain board certification.
All those who were certified in general psychiatry after October 1, 1994, do not have lifetime certification. Thus, to maintain their certification, they must apply for, take, and pass a recertification examination. Those who were certified prior to October 1, 1994, do not have to take the recertification exam.
The new exam will be a closed-book, proctored exam on a computer.
That may send shivers up the spine of some, but Deborah Hales, M.D., director of APA'and National Programs, said that the Association is committed to helping members prepare for the exam.
"No one likes to take a test, especially a closed-book exam," she said. "So there's some anxiety about it, and a lot of psychiatrists haven't thought much about it. But it's APA's job to provide members the educational tools to get ready for recertification."
Those tools do exist. "APA has always had an outstanding annual meeting to help our members keep up with new developments and treatments in psychiatry," Hales said. "We want to add to that."
She recommended several products that can be found online, especially APA "GrandRounds Online," and the new journal, Focus: A Journal of Lifelong Learning in Psychiatry.
Hales said Focus is a clinical review journal for practicing psychiatrists to review topics specified by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology (ABPN) that will be covered in the recertification exam.
The journal also offers members a selfassessment exam, similar to the recertification exam, Hales said. (The online version of Focus will include the self-assessment exam beginning this fall.)
According to the ABPN, which administers the recertification exam, specialty recertification will require a full-day commitment once every 10 years.
Psychiatrists can take the first exam on either August 3 or 4, 2004, at the Computer Test Center in the offices of the ABPN in Deerfield, Ill. The deadline for applying for the exam is October 1. The 2004 Information for Applicants booklet and the application for the exam are available in PDF format on the ABPN Web site at <www.abpn.com/recertification>.
In addition to those who need to renew their certification with the ABPN, some diplomates with lifetime certification are also opting to take the recertification examination. They may be doing this for a variety of reasons: to demonstrate personal competence, at the urging of their employers, and in response to outside demands, such as third-party payers and licensing bodies. (Some licensing bodies may, in the near future, require a cognitive examination at least once every 10 years to maintain licensure, and the ABPN recertification examination is one way to fulfill that requirement.)
The ABPN recommends that examinees use the following resources for test preparation: peer-reviewed journals, current monographs and textbooks, review publications, practice guidelines, and accredited continuing medical education programs.
The ABPN does not endorse any boardpreparation course, regardless of what advertisers may claim.
Concerns About Quality
The newly required 10-year recertification is a response to public and professional concerns about medical errors, the growing complexity of medicine and medical knowledge, and the quality and competence of American physicians.
As Hales noted, physicians in all specialties are affected by the requirement.
"Medicine as a profession has decided it is better to police itself than have the government policing it," Hales told Psychiatric News. "It is human nature that people get a little comfortable, and this is a way of helping doctors keep up with the fact that there is rapid change in medicine. We need our doctors to be current."
ABPN Executive Vice President Stephen Scheiber, M.D., agreed. "With so much medical attention these days on medical errors and insurance issues, the public is demanding that physicians demonstrate expertise and competence," he said. "Taking and passing a recertification exam is one way to do that. The public deserves competent medical care, and board certification is one way the profession is working to assure that."
Scheiber added, "The medical profession has been slow to respond to outside concerns related to quality performance measures, thus allowing many players to enter the arena of assessment. If our profession does not accept responsibility in a manner that provides the requisite public assurances, it surely will continue to be challenged from the outside."
Additional Components
The exam is only one component of what the American Board of Medical Specialties -of which ABPN is one of 24 member specialty boards-hopes to be a lifelong "maintenance of certification" program involving four components: evidence of professional standing, evidence of self-assessment and lifelong learning, evidence of cognitive expertise (the recertification examination), and evidence of performance in practice
Scheiber said that working out how to assess these four components is an ongoing process. "Although the ABPN is in the process of implementing the cognitive- expertise component of the maintenance of certification program with the secure, proctored recertification examinations, the issue of how lifelong learning will need to be documented and other aspects of how maintenance of certification will be developed remain to be determined," he said.
More information on recertification is posted on ABPN's Web at <www.abpn.com/recertification/>. Subscription information for the APA journal Focus: A Journal of Lifelong Learning in Psychiatry is posted on the Web at <www.appi.org/Cat2k/FOC.html>.▪
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Published online: 4 July 2003
Published in print: July 4, 2003
Notes
Psychiatrists board certified after October 1, 1994, will be required to take and pass a recertification exam every 10 years to maintain board certification. The deadline for applying to take the first exam is October 1.
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