He Got Quick Education on Board Certification
When he arrived in Pittsburgh last September for the American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS) Conference, Abdullah Alshreef, PhD, was just becoming familiar with the importance of board certification.
Dr. Alshreef had recently been selected as an ABMS Scholar, one of three funded last year by the ABR. They each received $15,000 grants to be part of the year-long, part-time program that supports early career physicians, physicists, and researchers. He learned about the program when he read an item in the ABR’s e-newsletter, The Beam.
“I hadn’t heard about it until I started my residency,” he said. “I got the newsletter email, and it made me think. I thought I would not get it, but I gave it a try.”
Despite his expectations, he earned his spot as a Scholar. During conference week in Pittsburgh, Dr. Alshreef’s curiosity and enthusiasm also lined up as a good match for a position on the ABR’s Medical Physics Initial Certification Advisory Committee, a group that acts as a liaison between the Board and trainees. The ABR has Initial and Continuing certification committees for all four of the specialties it certifies.
“I met Dr. Alshreef just a few months after he was selected as an ABMS Scholar,” said ABR Director of Exam Services David Laszakovits, who was communications director and staff liaison to advisory committees when he connected with Dr. Alshreef in Pittsburgh. “Within minutes of speaking with him, his passion for medical physics education was clear.”
Eating meals and meeting in the hallways with ABR staff encouraged Dr. Alshreef to volunteer for the organization. The connections he made helped his cause and he was added to the committee.
“Even though I was meeting everyone for the first time, I think it gave me an advantage,” he said.
His advisory committee has gotten together once since he joined. Dr. Alshreef was a virtual attendee for the session, which was held in Vancouver during the American Association of Physicists in Medicine annual meeting in July. He had moved back to his native Saudi Arabia earlier that month for a job at a teaching hospital after completing his residency at Loma Linda University Health.
There are time zone differences and the disadvantage of participating via Teams, but those barriers won’t stop him from contributing and learning as a committee member.
“I want to transfer this knowledge to my work in Saudi Arabia,” he said. “All of us in the medical field have the same goals of patient safety. I am not looking just to work on the national level for ABR and ABMS. I want to use my knowledge internationally.”
Working with his medical specialty board has shown Dr. Alshreef a model that he would like to see adopted across the Middle East.
“The ABR has the highest (certification) standards in the world for medical physicists,” he said.
His time with the ABMS will continue after he presents his research results at this year’s annual conference in Rosemont, Illinois, next week. He has started helping the organization, which serves as the umbrella over 24 medical specialty boards, as a grant application reviewer.
“It gives me the opportunity to learn how to not just write grant applications, but also review them,” he said.
Dr. Alshreef was the first medical physicist to be named an ABMS Scholar. This year’s class of ABR-affiliated hopefuls had 17 applicants, seven of whom were physicists. The ABR has made the financial commitment to support four Scholars per year.
He plans to be a vocal advocate for the program by talking with interested colleagues and posting on social media. Three potential applicants approached him to ask questions before this year’s deadline.
“I’ve been trying to speak in my community to maximize the number of medical physicists (in the program),” Dr. Alshreef said. “I hope we have more and more in the future.”
