Last week two perspectives were published in the New England Journal of Medicine discussing the ongoing controversy of the American Board of Internal Medicine’s (ABIM’s) Maintenance of Certification (MOC) process. (For those who need a refresher, you can view all of the previous blog posts on MOC here.)

The first perspective, by Mira B. Irons, MD, and Lois M. Nora, MD, JD, MBA, representatives of the American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS), details the background of MOC and how the recently approved 2015 ABMS standards for MOC were developed. They note that the standards were modified after a comprehensive two-year review. They emphasize that “high standards of specialty certification are important to health care, and we hope our medical-community partners will work with us to continue to evolve our certification systems to ensure that the standards they set continue to be highly valued in the future.”

In the second perspective, Paul S. Teirstein, MD, FACC, provides an opposing position on MOC that several ACC members have shared. He notes that “many physicians are waking up to the fact that our profession is increasingly controlled by people not directly involved in patient care who have lost contact with the realities of day-to-day clinical practice. Perhaps it's time for practicing physicians to take back the leadership of medicine.”

The tension between the two articles reflects two opposing societal forces: the ABMS’ and ABIM’s mission to assure the public that medicine’s professional commitments to integrity and accountability are fully and demonstrably in place, and Dr. Teirstein’s and others’ concern that the methods chosen to revise MOC have not been validated convincingly and are another example of ceding control to authorities removed from clinical practice.

Since the ABIM announced that a new MOC process would be implemented, the ACC has been proactively listening to its members, gathering feedback and suggestions, and actively engaging the ABIM leadership in modifying the MOC requirements. Today, William Oetgen, MD, MBA, FACC, executive vice president of Science, Education and Quality for the ACC, and I published a Leadership Page in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology (JACC), discussing the status of the efforts to work with ABIM to modify the MOC process over the past year and bringing the JACC readership up to date since our previous report in August 2014.

Of note, the ABIM has appointed 14 new members of the cardiology board, selected from stakeholder recommendations including those from the ACC. Twelve of these board members are practicing cardiologists from both the private and academic communities, and 11 are FACCs. Our hope is that these ABIM cardiology board members will effectively voice the concerns expressed by ACC members and leadership.

As these discussions continue and the MOC debate continues, rest assured that the ACC continues not only to listen, but also to advocate on your behalf. We recognize the time sensitive nature of these issues. We are your ACC.

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