News
Discover inspiring stories from our volunteers, candidates, and community, and stay up to date with important news and announcements on exams, policies, and more.
Misunderstood to Ms. Understood: Hopes and Goals of a Woman in Medicine
By Elizabeth Russ, MD Being female and living in a male-dominated world can be complicated. We often feel misunderstood; our equality efforts are about building up women, not tearing down men. Women have come a long way in the world of medicine. As I am sure many of you know, women make up 50.5% of…
Original Member of MP Advisory Committee Still Happy to Lend a Hand
An original member of the ABR’s Medical Physics Initial Certification Advisory Committee, Samantha Simiele, PhD, jumped at the chance to contribute when invited to become part of the group in 2016. “Joining the team allowed me to contribute to a process so integral to the medical physics profession and at such an early stage in my career,” said Dr. Simiele, who…
Our Mission Becomes More Focused by Working with Associations and Societies
By Cheri L. Canon, MD, ABR Governor, and David Laszakovits, MBA, ABR Communications Director The ABR relies on relationships with our colleagues across the radiologic disciplines to provide perspectives at multiple levels. Some of these are informal, including those with our volunteers who have leadership roles in specialty societies. Others are more defined, such as…
A Few Tips for OLA Participants
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…
One Busy Year Later, ABR Executive Director Knows There’s Plenty More to Do
Brent Wagner, MD, MBA, completed his first year as the ABR’s executive director in June. He recently took time to offer a few thoughts about his experience in the position so far. How unusual has it been having a largely remote workforce since your first day here? Much of the work we do at the…
ABR Board Approves Residency Leave Policy
By Vincent P. Mathews, MD, ABR President This past weekend, the ABR Board of Governors culminated months of partnership with stakeholders by approving a residency leave policy that allows residents with up to eight weeks (40 workdays) of time off per academic year to remain eligible for Initial Certification without an extension of training. The…
Awardee: Humanism a Necessity in Medicine
Brooke Burkins, MS, recently earned the Arnold P. Gold Foundation’s Gold Humanism Honor Society Award. This peer-nominated award is given to someone who is humanistic, compassionate, and an advocate for people facing diverse barriers in healthcare. Medical students, residents, and physician leaders are inducted into this honor society to serve as role models for the…
LGBTQIA+ Community Concerned About All Marginalized Populations
By Toni Marie Roth, MS If you had told me a few years ago that I would be writing a blog for the ABR regarding my upcoming AAPM presentation on “The Intersection of Race and LGBTQIA+,” I would not have known how to respond. As a proud Puerto Rican, culturally Jewish person who identifies as…
Radiation was a Beam of Hope for ABR Employee
Being 6-foot-5 and towering over most other people is a dream for many Americans. For ABR Software Developer Casey Baker, it was a warning sign. Baker grew an unlikely four inches between ages 21 and 28. He also experienced chronic fatigue and decreased energy, prompting him to seek a medical opinion in January 2016. What…
First-Time Oral Examiners Make Easy Move to Remote Platform
First-time ABR examiners this spring only experienced in-person oral exams in Louisville or Tucson as candidates. Although their knowledge of the old process is limited, they see many advantages in using the remote format. We reached out to five new examiners to get their thoughts on the platform: Joseph Erinjeri, MD (interventional radiology); Sarah Milgrom,…
IR/DR IC Advisory Committee Ready to Improve Candidate Experience
Eleven enthusiastic and knowledgeable medical professionals have joined our first interventional radiology/diagnostic radiology initial certification advisory committee. They bring unique perspectives and goals to their new volunteer positions. Virginia Commonwealth University Assistant Professor Christopher Bailey, DO, has been working as a Society for Interventional Radiology Early Career Section liaison to the ABR in discussions about remote computer-based…
Newly Scorable Questions Can Affect OLA Individual Performances
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…
A3CR2 Award Proves Value of Trustee’s Commitment to Teaching
By Sanjeev Bhalla, MD Many years ago, my mentor, Stuart Sagel, told me that academic radiology was like running a relay race. As an attending, my job was to take the baton from one generation and pass it on to the next. For the past 20 years at the Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology at Washington University in Saint Louis, I have…
ABR Family Leave Policy: An Opportunity for Progress in Radiology
By Jesse M. Conyers, MD The American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS) Policy on Parental, Caregiver, and Family Leave represents a culture shift in medicine. According to the policy, “Starting in July 2021, all ABMS Member Boards with training programs of two or more years duration will allow for a minimum of six weeks away…
Game, Set, Matched: Match Day Validations
By Jacqueline Koomson, MD Medicine has always been an intimidating institution to me. Facing the daunting years of training, I feared I was inherently inadequate. I spent 22 years in school learning about organ systems, pathways and procedures, patient interactions – all things that would shape me as a doctor. As I immersed myself in…