The Vision for the Future of Continuing Board Certification

Self-regulation is crucial to modern-day professionalism, and indeed essential to ABPD for it to remain relevant and thrive.  A primary purpose of the Renewal of Certification Process (ROC-P) is to assure our stakeholders that as board certified pediatric dentists we continue to validate our clinical and didactic knowledge as well as our skills and techniques.  However, questions remain if ROC-P offers an adequate and appropriate mix of educational content.  More fundamentally, how valid is this process for our certification renewal?

The Vision Initiative, instituted by the American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS), which comprises of 24 medical specialty boards, is attempting to answer such questions. In 2017, ABMS appointed the Planning Committee to form the Commission whose charge was to make recommendations about the future of continuing board certification.  On February 13, 2019, the Commission issued their final report and a copy can be downloaded from www.visioninitiative.org.

ABPD believes the voluntary participation in continuous learning through board certification and recertification improves the quality of pediatric oral health care and patient outcomes.  The Board is constantly looking for ways to evaluate and strengthen the processes, to improve the lifelong learning experience for our Diplomates, and to reassure the public that our self-regulation is appropriate and valid.  Therefore, ABPD plans to evaluate best practices recommended by the Commission to help us enhance the certification and recertification processes of ABPD. 

Pang: The Vision for the Future of Continuing Board Certification, PDT Newsletter, May, 2018