Engagement Network Member Spotlight: Suneel Parvathareddy, MD

What motivated you to join the ABFM Engagement Network?

I chose to join the ABFM Engagement Network because I believe that family medicine is strongest when clinicians on the front lines actively contribute to shaping the direction of our discipline. Throughout my career, I have been committed to high‑quality patient care, continuous improvement, and advancing community health. The Engagement Network provided a meaningful avenue to connect those passions with a national platform dedicated to strengthening board certification, supporting family physicians, and enhancing the care our patients receive.

What motivated me to share my perspective was the recognition that lived experience matters. As a clinician educator, peer reviewer, and community health advocate, I routinely witness both the strengths and challenges that family physicians navigate every day—across practice settings, patient populations, and systems of care. I felt it was important that ABFM hear from physicians who are deeply engaged at the grassroots level and who understand how policies and certification processes impact real-world practice.

Contributing to the Engagement Network allows me to:

• Amplify the experiences of physicians and learners I work with, ensuring their needs and realities inform ABFM’s decisions.
• Support a more equitable, patient-centered primary care system, especially for underserved and vulnerable populations.
• Help shape certification resources that are meaningful, relevant, and supportive, rather than burdensome.
• Give back to the profession that has given me so many opportunities to serve communities in the US.

What has your experience been like so far?

My experience with the ABFM Engagement Network has been very positive and genuinely energizing. I’ve appreciated how intentional the ABFM team is about listening, synthesizing perspectives, and ensuring that family physicians across different practice settings have a seat at the table. The platform feels less like a survey mechanism and more like a collaborative space where real clinical insight shapes meaningful improvements in certification, assessment, and lifelong learning.

So far, the Engagement Network has offered opportunities to:

• Reflect on important issues that affect family physicians at every stage of their career.
• Share perspective on policies, performance improvement, and certification tools that impact day‑to‑day patient care.
• Learn how ABFM evaluates and incorporates physician feedback into future programs.
• Connect with broader trends in primary care and see how national initiatives align with what we experience locally.

The process has been transparent, respectful, and well‑structured—which makes participation feel meaningful rather than burdensome. Despite wearing multiple hats, Chief Medical Officer/administrator, hospitalist, and core faculty in a residency program—participation has been very manageable.

ABFM designed the Engagement Network with busy clinicians in mind. Here’s why it fits:

• Flexible timing: Engagement opportunities are brief and asynchronous. I can contribute during breaks between clinical duties, early mornings, or evenings without disrupting patient care or administrative responsibilities.
• Focused content: The questions are concise and relevant, so I can respond thoughtfully without needing extensive preparation.
• High relevance to my roles: Topics frequently overlap with my leadership responsibilities, quality improvement, workforce well‑being, training needs, and care delivery challenges—so participation feels naturally integrated into my daily work.
• Meaningful return on investment: Even small-time commitments feel worthwhile because my input directly influences ABFM programs that affect practicing physicians, learners, and health systems.

In short, participation complements rather than competing with my commitments as a CMO, hospitalist, and educator.

Why do you think physician input matters in helping to shape the future of board certification?

Physician input matters because those who deliver care every day possess the deepest understanding of what truly supports competent, compassionate, and high‑quality clinical practice. Certification is not an abstract concept—it directly influences how we learn, improve, and demonstrate our commitment to our patients. For that reason, physicians must play a central role in guiding its future.

Frontline clinicians bring:

1. Real‑world insight into what works and what burdens care. Family physicians work in complex environments, clinics, hospitals, teaching programs, and community settings. We understand where certification can enhance quality and where it risks adding unnecessary administrative strain. The only way to design a system that is both rigorous and realistic is to incorporate this firsthand experience.
2. A commitment to meaningful lifelong learning. Physicians know which learning activities genuinely improve practice and which ones merely “check a box.” Our feedback ensures that certification evolves in a direction that supports true professional development, helps us care better for patients, and aligns with how clinicians prefer to learn.
3. Diverse perspectives that reflect the breadth of family medicine. Family physicians practice in rural, suburban, urban, academic, and inpatient settings. We care for patients across the lifespan and across cultures. This range of experiences is essential to shaping a certification system that is equitable, inclusive, and applicable to all Diplomates, not just a subset.

Physician input matters because those who care for patients every day deeply understand what makes certification meaningful, supportive, and practical. Diplomates bring real‑world experience, diverse perspectives, and a commitment to lifelong learning that is essential for shaping a credible and relevant certification system. When Diplomates have a voice, certification evolves in a way that strengthens quality, reduces unnecessary burden, and truly reflects the needs of both physicians and the patients we serve.