Addiction Medicine Seeks ABMS Specialty Status

There are 75 ABMS-recognized subspecialties. The newest are hospice and palliative care (pending) and sleep medicine (2006). There is also a precedent for subspecialty fields to evolve over time to become primary boards, such as radiology.

“We realized addiction medicine would not become a primary board. It would be difficult because of the huge cost involved and a perception of taking physicians from other specialties,” Dr. Kunz said. The last specialty to form a primary board at inception was medical genetics, which formed in 1991 after 26 years as a self-regulated board.

“Whatever we come up with, we will have to develop a grandfather clause. But it will still have to meet ACGME [Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education] and ABMS criteria,” Dr. Goldsmith said.

“We know there are some big challenges out there,” Dr. Miller said. “What happens to people with ASAM credentials today? How will we grandfather them in?” He added, “But we realize that an ABMS-recognized specialty of addiction medicine is exactly the direction we need to go.” There will be an opportunity for residents in addiction psychiatry to take the certification exam as well.

Defining the scope of addiction medicine practice and its core competencies are among the next steps. A dialogue with other physician specialty societies and boards is planned as well, with the ultimate goal of certifying individual physicians starting in 2009.