Expanding the role of the Vascular Surgery Board-ABS

Maintenance of Certification

The American Board of Medical Specialties, the umbrella organization for all 24 medical specialty boards, established in 2003 that all of its member boards must adopt a continuous process of MOC.

In addition, each board was charged with developing requirements addressing each of these four areas: professional standing, lifelong learning and self-assessment, cognitive examination, and evaluation of performance in practice. While the ABS and VSB-ABS have sought to make MOC requirements as flexible as possible, we recognize that MOC needs improvement. Thousands of ABS diplomates were sent a survey this past fall regarding MOC so we could better understand the concerns of surgeons with the current process. The VSB-ABS recognizes these concerns and is currently considering various options to make MOC more relevant and convenient for vascular surgeons. Later this year, we anticipate sending a survey to better gain meaningful input specifically from vascular surgery diplomates regarding the need and options for change.

SCORE for Vascular Surgery

The VSB-ABS has also been hard at work in collaboration with the APDVS to produce SCORE for Vascular Surgery (“V-SCORE”), a structured curriculum for vascular surgery trainees using the SCORE Portal. SCORE for Vascular Surgery is being designed to emphasize the important topics that every vascular trainee should know and expect to be tested on. The curriculum outline is available at www.surgicalcore.org as a PDF document. The curriculum materials are available to vascular surgery training programs from the same website with a subscription and will be continuously updated to remain current.

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Creation of a Certifying Examination Committee

This calendar year, a Certifying Examination Committee to write case scenarios and maintain updated images for the oral examination will be formed. This committee will be selected from a pool of qualified diplomates. The request for volunteers to be considered will be released shortly.

In summary, many changes are occurring in the structure and the activities of the VSB-ABS in order to have broader representation from the vascular community and be responsive to diplomate concerns, all the while maintaining a high standard for certification and recertification/MOC. Future regular updates from the VSB-ABS are planned to keep our diplomates informed.