Clinical Informatics subspecialty certification - Informatics - Clinical / Lab

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10/10/2011 10:12:43 AM

CNewman
Posts: 2

The American Board of Medical Specialties approved a new subspecialty in September (2011), Clinical Informatics, which will be offered through several Medical Boards, including American Board of Pathology (ABP), hopefully by the end of 2012. However, no additional information is available from the American Board of Pathology as to the eligibility or the content for the examination. Does anyone have any additional information on this? I would appreciate that. Thanks.

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10/17/2011 2:30:30 PM Schumeyer Posts: 2	I called American Medical Informatics Association and they confirmed that the sub-specialty board certification has been approved and to contact ABP for further information. However, ABP did not have any additional information. I guess by next year we'll know more from ABP.
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10/31/2011 7:09:59 PM Posts:	The 2012 date for examination is a tentative one and seems like ABP is working on to draft a document. To early to say anything.
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10/31/2011 8:36:49 PM ubalis Posts: 2	It will likely be one or more years until such boards are ready for applicant to forward subspecialty applications. The test writing committee isjust now in the process of beginning the creation of the test, its questionsand the overall format. We haven’t even all met for the first time.
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10/31/2011 9:06:04 PM Posts:	Thanks very much Dr. Balis for your quick response. Can you or somebody else from your organizing committee let APB to have some answers on this. I am sure other pathologists or trainees might have called ABP with similar queries.
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11/1/2011 8:16:18 AM

ubalis
Posts: 2

The secretariat of this effort is the American Board of Preventative Medicine (ABPM). I will ask them to contact the ABP. However, I do not think the silence on the ABP's part is a matter of their not being informed. Rather, my understanding is that they have not officially released a public statement or policy, and given that reality, it is unlikely that they would make any direct comments to applicants until their board has met and decided on the details of this possible new sub-specialty for pathology. To be very clear, I do not speak for the ABP and I have no relationship with them whatsoever. My capacity in this issue is simply that I am the program director of one of the five truly active Pathology Informatics fellowship programs in the US, and in that capacity, the ABPM (and not the ABP) has invited me to help assemble the test. So far, to my knowledge, the ABP has had no interactions with this effort. So while I am hopeful that there will ultimately be a pathology informatics subspecialty, this eventuality is by no means a fait accompli at this point. Thus, my participation is based on hope of a sub-specialty coming to fruition and not any absolute promise. As such, potential applicants should simply wait for an official announcement. The test writing committee has no knowledge of the exact timing of such matters.
I hope this helps to clarify matters at least a bit.

Ulysses Balis, MD

University of Michigan

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11/1/2011 12:26:01 PM CNewman Posts: 2	Thank you so much Dr. Balis for providing us some information. You are the first person who has given me some concrete information about the status of this new subspecialty. I would wait to hear from ABP.
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11/2/2011 8:30:06 AM

Posts:

I would like to post comments on this forum made by Dr. Liron Pantanowitz, MD (with his permission), Associate Professor of Pathology & Biomedical Informatics, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, Department of Pathology, UPMC Shadyside, Pittsburgh, PA. His comments are a follows in italics,
[The new informatics board exam, to be offered in 2012, I believe falls under the American Board of Preventative Medicine (& is only sponsored by the ABP). See http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/750487 Specific details are not available yet. The API have an education subcommittee working on providing guidance for training & taking the exam, so that may provide pathologists with more details. There have been 2 publications on this topic to date (see below), which you may want to read.

Safran C, Shabot MM, Munger BS, Holmes JH, Steen EB, Lumpkin JR, Detmer DE; AMIA Board of Directors. Program requirements for fellowship education in the subspecialty of clinical informatics. J Am Med Inform Assoc. 2009;16(2):158-66. Erratum in: J Am Med Inform Assoc. 2009;16(4):605.

Gardner RM, Overhage JM, Steen EB, Munger BS, Holmes JH, Williamson JJ, Detmer DE; AMIA Board of Directors. Core content for the subspecialty of clinical informatics. J Am Med Inform Assoc. 2009;16(2):153-7.]
I thank you Dr. Pantanowitz and Dr. Balis for commenting on this issue.
Zahid Kaleem, M.D

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11/2/2011 11:18:40 AM Schumeyer Posts: 2	I have been following this interesting forum and got good education on the topic. I appreciate all the comments made by Dr. Kaleem, Dr. Balis, and Dr. Pantanowitz.
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