The American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS) Board of Directors approved new Standards for Continuing Certification at its October meeting last week. Continuing Certification used to be known as Maintenance of Certification. For American Board of Radiology diplomates, almost all of the language in the new Standards is consistent with our existing programs. Specifically, there…
Mike Ulissey, MD, earned certification in diagnostic radiology from the ABR in 1998. As a lifetime certificate holder, he doesn’t have to participate in Continuing Certification. He has many reasons why he does anyway. “I don’t think that you can say, ‘I’m 20 years into practice, and I’m just as good today as I was…
Continuing Certification requires lifelong learning and a cognitive assessment of the knowledge of practicing physicians and physicists. The Online Longitudinal Assessment (OLA) instrument developed by the ABR is designed to test knowledge and provide learning. The explanations given after each item are the consensus of a committee of experts in the area being tested. As of…
Online Longitudinal Assessment (OLA) current cumulative scores are updated every Monday for diplomates who have answered at least 52 scorable questions. The current cumulative score can change, even for participants who haven’t recently answered questions. Most often, the reason for the change is that questions don’t count toward the current cumulative score until they have…
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…
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.