The ABR Board decided last week, effective for 2021 and beyond, to eliminate the “conditioning” result for candidates who passed the overall Core Exam but did not meet the specific passing threshold for physics. In recent years, this has affected less than 1% of candidates. This change aligns the scoring model for physics with the clinical and modality portions of…
By Raghavendiran Boopathy, PhD; Malcolm Heard, PhD; and James A Tanyi, PhD In our professional lives, we all have had moments where we wished we had done things or approached problems differently. In writing this article, our purpose is to give a perspective for the future generation looking to make an impact in medical physics….
They have decades of combined experience in their fields. They have spent years as ABR volunteers, working on committees and as oral examiners. Now, they are part-time staff who serve as associate executive directors (AEDs), helping connect the ABR with its many stakeholders. Paul Wallner, DO, is the AED with most tenure, having held the…
By Catheryn Yashar, MD My healthy husband’s first cough was March 9, 2020. Thankfully, he has nearly recovered. That day he was worried, so he wandered down to the ER and was reassured the virus “isn’t here yet.” He called in sick the next day. Five days later, he was either sleeping or coughing. Meals…
By Hala Mazin, MD The resident match is one of the most exciting times in your medical school career. It is what you have been working so hard to reach for the last four years! This virtual match season poses new challenges; it may be difficult to decipher your best fit and which program will…
Online Longitudinal Assessment (OLA) has been around for two years, including an entire year when diplomates from all four specialties participated. With more than 3.5 million answers submitted, many participants say it has been an effective way of satisfying Part 3 of Maintenance of Certification. More than 6,000 diplomates participated in a recent survey in…
By Summer Kaplan, MD Part of the ABR’s Maintenance of Certification (MOC) process, Online Longitudinal Assessment (OLA) is a step forward for our profession. OLA aligns our board requirements with how radiologists currently learn: online and in real time. Maintaining updated knowledge is core to our jobs as radiologists. It takes effort to maintain the…
By Leah Braswell, MD “The greatness of a community is most accurately measured by the compassionate actions of its members.” –Coretta Scott King Growing up, nearly everyone in our small town got their vaccines at my dad’s clinic. A self-described “country” doctor, Dad brought pig hearts to our classes to teach anatomy, responded to playground…
When Mary Mahoney, MD, discusses her plans for 2021 as the new Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) president, she says things are “up in the air.” Interestingly, that’s one place she won’t spend much time this year despite the organization’s global reach. COVID-19, of course, is to blame. With in-person meetings shut down across…
The ABR is a not-for-profit organization and member of the American Board of Medical Specialties. Our mission is to certify that our diplomates demonstrate the requisite knowledge, skill, and understanding of their disciplines to the benefit of patients. Our vision is to positively impact the lives of all patients as the foremost trusted certifying body assuring the highest standards of specialty expertise and professionalism in the radiological sciences.