A new focus on research

Self-assessment is an ongoing and increasingly extensive process. As a matter of basic ethics and good conscience, the ABFM cannot require diplomates to scrutinize their knowledge and practices if we are not equally willing to engage in a perpetual and data driven self-evaluation. As such, a vector of the ABFM’s research direction will be self-reflective. We will evaluate the effects of changes instituted since ABFM began the Maintenance of Certification processes in 2004 and the validity of our assessment processes. There are many questions that we have addressed already, but there are far more that have yet to be addressed. For example, we have been gathering data from participants in the Maintenance of Certification program regarding their impressions of the MC-FP process. Feedback has been markedly positive. After completing a single Self-Assessment Module (SAM), one-half of all respondents indicated that they will change their practice as a result of their participation. More than 90% of these physicians listed 1 or more specific behaviors that they intend to alter based on material presented in the SAM process. Although this data appears positive, we do not assume that the data are either static or definitive.