Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Moore, Francis D
• Lang, Susan M

Titel

Board-Certified Physicians in the United States: Specialty Distribution and Policy Implications of Trends during the Past Decade

Ist Teil von

• The New England journal of medicine, 1981-04, Vol.304 (18), p.1078-1084

Ort / Verlag

United States: Massachusetts Medical Society

Erscheinungsjahr

1981

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

MEDLINE

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Board certification is a universal ambition among graduates of American medical schools. It is a measure of postgraduate achievement and clinical ability that leads to staff appointments, promotions, clinical privileges, increased fees, and reduced mal-practice premiums. The number of physicians receiving specialty-board diplomas each year has increased remarkably over the past 15 years. The annual mean for the years 1976–1978 was 17,381 — larger than the graduating medical class four years before. The number of board-certified physicians in medicine, surgery, and the clinical services increased from 106,300 in 1971 to 158,900 in 1978. The percentage of board-certified physicians in these fields has increased from 65 to 78 per cent. Board certification in family practice commenced in 1970 and is still increasing sharply (from 1523 [1970–1972] to 3444 [1976–1978]). The growth of internal medicine and its subjacent specialties is the most spectacular and has been more rapid than that of either surgery or the clinical services, in both of which the board-certification rate and number of board-certified practitioners have stabilized since 1973. As board certification becomes a virtually universal criterion that carries the implication of de facto licensing, its social role should be reevaluated. (N Engl J Med. 1981; 304:1078–84.) EXCELLENCE in medicine may depend not so much on total numbers of physicians as on an operational balance between physicians readily available in primary care and family practice and their support by consultants in special fields of learning. Long a criterion of specialization, certification by the American boards has recently become a criterion of postgraduate achievement in family practice. This paper examines trends in the number and proportions of board-certified physicians in active practice during the past decade in all fields, including family practice, and discusses the implications of the move toward universal board certification. The present system of American . . .