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Los Médicos de Urgencias y Emergencias Mantienen el Rendimiento en el Examen de Certificación Continuada de la American Board of Emergency Medicine
Author(s) -
Marco Catherine A.,
Counselman Francis L.,
Korte Robert C.,
Russ Chad M.,
Whitley Cameron T.,
Reisdorff Earl J.
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
academic emergency medicine
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.221
H-Index - 124
eISSN - 1553-2712
pISSN - 1069-6563
DOI - 10.1111/acem.12378
Subject(s) - medicine , certification , united states medical licensing examination , summative assessment , physical examination , maintenance of certification , confidence interval , emergency department , emergency medicine , family medicine , surgery , medical education , nursing , formative assessment , medical school , management , psychology , economics , pedagogy
Objectives The American Board of Emergency Medicine (ABEM) Maintenance of Certification (MOC) program is a four‐step process that includes the Continuous Certification (ConCert) examination. The ConCert examination is a validated, summative examination that assesses medical knowledge and clinical reasoning. ABEM began administering the ConCert examination in 1989. The ConCert examination must be passed at least every 10 years to maintain certification. This study was undertaken to determine longitudinal physician performance on the ConCert examination. Methods In this longitudinal review, ConCert examination performance was compared among residency‐trained emergency physicians (EPs) over multiple examination cycles. Longitudinal analysis was performed using a growth curve model for unbalanced data to determine the growth trajectories of EP performance over time to see if medical knowledge changed. Using initial certification qualifying examination scores, the longitudinal analysis corrected for intrinsic variances in physician ability. Results There were 15,085 first‐time testing episodes from 1989 to 2012 involving three examination cycles. The mean adjusted examination scores for all physicians taking the ConCert examination for a first cycle was 85.9 (95% confidence interval [CI] = 85.8 to 85.9), the second cycle mean score was 86.2 (95% CI = 86.0 to 86.3), and the third cycle was 85.4 (95% CI = 85.0 to 85.8). Using the first examination cycle as a reference score, the growth curve model analysis resulted in a coefficient of +0.3 for the second cycle (p < 0.001) and –0.5 for the third cycle (p = 0.02). Initial qualifying (written) examination scores were significant predictors for ConCert examination scores. Conclusions Over time, EP performance on the ConCert examination was maintained. These results suggest that EPs maintain medical knowledge over the course of their careers as measured by a validated, summative medical knowledge assessment.