Stakeholder Feedback Continues to Drive ABR Decisions
By Desiree E. Morgan, MD, ABR Governor
2024;17(5):1
“Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.”
– Winston Churchill
Listening is so important, and I challenge all of us to do more of it in this season and beyond. You will find multiple references in this edition of The Beam where we describe the courage of stakeholders, whether that of our Initial and Continuing Certification Advisory Committee members or that of the various stakeholder groups who have provided the ABR with their thoughts and opinions on our processes and assessment instruments over the past several years. All are highly valued by the ABR, and we are listening.
In this issue …
Cheri L. Canon, MD, who started her term as ABR president last month, answers questions about her new role.
ABR Executive Director Brent Wagner, MD, MBA, provides an interactive organization chart illustrating how the Board of Governors and Board of Trustees interact with each other, volunteers, and staff.
ABR President Cheri L. Canon, MD, and ABR President-elect John A. Kaufman, MD, MS, announce an opening for a public member on the ABR Board of Governors and describe the qualifications for this role.
ABR Board of Trustees Chair Matthew B. Podgorsak, PhD, calls for nominations for six open positions on the Board of Trustees.
ABR Governors Stephen F. Simoneaux, MD, and Desiree E. Morgan, MD; ABR Associate Executive Director for Diagnostic Radiology Mary S. Newell, MD; and ABR Executive Director Brent Wagner, MD, MBA, discuss scoring rubrics for the new DR Oral Exam coming in 2028.
ABR Associate Executive Director for Interventional Radiology James B. Spies, MD, MPH, and ABR President-elect John A. Kaufman, MD, MS, describe how Online Longitudinal Assessment (OLA) benefits IR diplomates by allowing them to align content with their practice profile.
Former ABR Trustee Robert A. Pooley, PhD; ABR Trustee Kalpana M. Kanal, PhD; ABR Board of Trustees Chair Matthew B. Podgorsak, PhD; and ABR Associate Executive Director for Medical Physics Geoffrey S. Ibbott, PhD, welcome new ABR Nuclear Medical Physics Trustee Jennifer R. Stickel, PhD.
ABR Trustee Catheryn Yashar, MD, and ABR Communications Director David Laszakovits, MBA, explain how volunteers and Continuing Certification Advisory Committee members help ensure that diplomates’ voices are heard and their concerns addressed.
ABR Communications Manager Rodney Campbell spoke with six new diagnostic and interventional radiology residents about their expectations for their residencies and their experiences so far.
Interventional radiologist Ezana Azene, MD, talked with ABR Communications Manager Rodney Campbell about the rewards of volunteering as an oral examiner, question writer, and member of the IR Continuing Certification Advisory Committee.
ABR Communications Manager Rodney Campbell interviewed radiation oncologist Malika Siker, MD, who draws from multiple sources, including her own experience as a candidate, to inform her volunteer work as an ABR oral examiner and question writer.
Breast Cancer Awareness Month provides an opportunity for physicians like Tomo Omofoye, MD, Pauline Germaine, DO, and Amy K. Patel, MD, to connect with patients from diverse communities, raise awareness of the disparities in healthcare coverage, and improve access to care in underserved populations.
At the end of the ABR board meeting in September, two volunteers joined the ABR Board of Governors and four started their first term on the Board of Trustees.
Congratulations to former ABR President James P. Borgstede, MD, on being awarded a Gold Medal from the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA).
OLA Allows Interventional Radiologists to Align Content With Practice
By James B. Spies, MD, MPH, ABR Associate Executive Director for Interventional Radiology, and John A. Kaufman, MD, MS, ABR President-elect
2024;17(5):7
One of the inherent benefits of ABR’s Online Longitudinal Assessment (OLA) for diagnostic radiology (DR) and interventional radiology/diagnostic radiology (IR/DR) diplomates is the flexibility of the program in allowing individuals to align the content with their practice profile.1 Although the platform cannot accommodate an exact fit for every diplomate (for example, those with highly specialized practices that do not extend across more than one imaging modality), adjustments in content allow an approximation of the relative frequency of subspecialty elements of practice.
To satisfy the Part 3 requirement (“Assessment of Knowledge, Judgment, and Skills”) of ABR’s Continuing Certification program, nearly all IR/DR diplomates use OLA. (Less than 5% choose a point-in-time exam, required every five years.) OLA has both summative (“assessment of learning”) and formative (“assessment for learning”) functions, as described previously in The Beam. Starting in January 2022, those wishing to maintain an IR/DR certificate but preferring not to answer exclusively IR content have been able to select one or two other content areas in diagnostic radiology (in addition to the required 50% of interventional radiology content). If two content areas are selected, each must be 25% of the total.
IR/DR diplomates select only IR content 59% of the time; this has remained unchanged from 2022-2024. The choices of the remaining 41% of IR/DR diplomates include three frequently selected combinations: IR plus (a) general radiology (10%), (b) emergency radiology (4%), or (c) general and emergency radiology (12%). More than 60 other combinations have been selected by IR/DR diplomates. Of the 1,885 IR diplomates who select OLA content outside of IR, 788 (42%) select one area and 1,097 (58%) choose two areas. This voluntary selection by participating diplomates is indicative of a range of practice of interventional radiologists that significantly overlaps with diagnostic radiology.
OLA serves the public by documenting a level of knowledge through an instrument that is psychometrically valid and developed by subject matter experts in the field. As part of the overall Continuing Certification program, OLA serves those who hold ABR certificates by identifying knowledge gaps and providing feedback to enhance a range of clinical skills and practice patterns.
1 Unfortunately, the relatively small populations of radiation oncology and medical physics diplomates prevent the ABR from creating a similar level of specificity in those disciplines.
Medical Physics Trustees Welcome Dr. Jennifer Stickel
By Robert A. Pooley, PhD, Former ABR Trustee; Kalpana M. Kanal, PhD, ABR Trustee; Matthew B. Podgorsak, PhD, ABR Board of Trustees Chair; and Geoffrey S. Ibbott, PhD, ABR Associate Executive Director for Medical Physics
2024;17(5):8
In this issue of The Beam, we focus our spotlight on ABR Trustee Jennifer R. Stickel, PhD, a medical physicist at the Colorado Associates in Medical Physics (CAMP).
Dr. Stickel became the nuclear medical physics (NMP) Trustee in September at the conclusion of the ABR fall board meeting. Dr. Stickel replaces Robert A. Pooley, PhD, who rotated off the Board of Trustees (BOT). As described in the article “Roles and Responsibilities of an ABR Trustee,” most Trustees have oversight of three or more committees. Dr. Stickel will have oversight of the MP Part 1 Clinical and Part 2 NMP Qualifying exams, Part 3 NMP Certifying Exam, and NMP Online Longitudinal Assessment (OLA) committees.
Dr. Stickel graduated with a PhD in biomedical engineering from the University of California, Davis; her advisor, Simon R. Cherry, PhD, literally wrote the book describing the discipline: Physics in Nuclear Medicine. Dr. Stickel was introduced to medical physics when it was time to find employment after graduating with her PhD, having no awareness of the field prior to that time. UC Davis was seeking a nuclear medical physicist to support the clinical imaging program, and she realized she could have a rewarding career supporting the equipment and clinical applications. She was fortunate to have wonderful mentors: John Boone, PhD; Ramsey Badawi, PhD; and former ABR Governor Tony Seibert, PhD. Dr. Stickel remained at UC Davis for two years before moving to Colorado and joining CAMP, a consulting group that provides medical physics services to the Rocky Mountain West. She worked her way up to partial owner and vice president while still supporting clinical medical physics needs.
Dr. Stickel is triple boarded! She has earned certifications from the ABR in NMP and diagnostic medical physics (DMP) and in nuclear medicine physics and instrumentation from the American Board of Science in Nuclear Medicine (ABSNM).
Dr. Stickel comes to the ABR BOT with a long history of professional service. She has been a member of several American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM) task groups, including TG 356, which was responsible for creating a medical physics practice guideline related to Y-90 microsphere radioembolization. She has been involved with the Intersocietal Accreditation Commission – Nuclear/PET (ICANL) organization since 2012 and has served in executive leadership roles, including the presidential chain, since 2017. She also helped develop the new radiopharmaceutical therapy standards and accreditation program with IAC. Dr. Stickel’s service to the ABR began in 2016 as an item writer for the NMP Part 2 Qualifying Exam. She has served as committee chair since 2019 and is rotating off at the end of this year. Additionally, Dr. Stickel regularly serves as an NMP Certifying Exam oral examiner.
Dr. Stickel has been married to her husband, Jonathan, for 25 years. They have two children: Jebediah, 17 years old and a senior in high school, and Jaelina, 13 years old and in eighth grade. When not supporting school events, they enjoy traveling in the U.S. and internationally. Dr. Stickel also likes baking — cakes, bread, and pastries all come out of the Stickel kitchen.
Of her ABR volunteer time so far, Dr. Stickel said, “The ABR exam process is such a rite of passage for medical physicists. Being able to be a part of the process and ensure that the exams are relevant and appropriate is such an important part of maintaining the impact of board certification for our field. The volunteers and staff are so committed to the process that it is great to be a part of this group.”
We welcome Dr. Stickel to the BOT and look forward to working with her.
