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News Highlights

New ABPM Executive Director

The American Board of Preventive Medicine is pleased to announce the selection of P Glenn Merchant, MD, MPH&TM as its next Executive Director. Dr. Merchant will succeed James M. Vanderploeg, MD, MPH upon his retirement from the position on August 31, 2010. In this role, Dr. Merchant will serve as the Chief Administrative Officer of the Board responsible for carrying out all functions of the Board. More detailed information on Dr. Merchant is available here.

New Educational Pathway to Certification

The American Board of Preventive Medicine (ABPM) is pleased to announce the approval of a new educational pathway leading to board certification. This pathway, called the Complementary Pathway, was approved by the American Board of Medical Specialties at its March meeting and marks the end of a process conducted over the past 18 months to seek approval for this new pathway. The Complementary Pathway is designed to accommodate physicians who wish to make a mid-career shift into the practice of Preventive Medicine and to achieve certification by the ABPM in one of its three specialty areas – Aerospace Medicine, Occupational Medicine, or Public Health and General Preventive Medicine.

With input from the specialty societies of preventive medicine, and from practitioners in the field and residency program directors, the ABPM designed an educational pathway that acknowledges the value of previous clinical training and practice experience and adds focused training requirements to enable the mid-career physician to achieve certification in the specialty area of their choice without completing a full residency training program through the traditional pathway. The comparison of the Complementary Pathway to the Traditional Residency Pathway is shown in the table on the next page.

Rather than two years of residency training, the Complementary Pathway only requires one year of formal residency training in a specialty area of Preventive Medicine.

In summary, the differences are:
1. One year of formal residency training in a specialty area of Preventive Medicine.
2. The requirement for the full masters degree (e.g. MPH degree) is replaced by the combination of:

  • post-graduate courses in five core areas – 1) biostatistics, 2) epidemiology, 3) environmental / occupational health, 4) health services management and administration, and 5) behavioral health science
    • AND
  • two years of prior ACGME-accredited training in another ABMS recognized specialty.
3. Two years of full-time practice in the Preventive Medicine specialty area in which certification is being sought.

This pathway will be available for applications for the 2011 ABPM board certification exam. Applications may be submitted through the ABPM online application website beginning March 1, 2011.

The full announcement, including the requirements summary table, is available here.

Undersea and Hyperbaric Medicine Practice Pathway

The practice pathway for Undersea and Hyperbaric Medicine ends June 30, 2010. Click here for the official announcement. Applications will be available on the ABPM website starting March 1 and must be submitted to the Board by July 1, 2010. After this year, ACGME-accredited fellowship training will be required to become certified in the subspecialty of Undersea and Hyperbaric Medicine.

The dates for the 2010 MOC exam are now available

All three specialty area examinations will be offered in conjunction with the annual meetings of ACPM, ACOEM, and AsMA. This implementation plan was developed to provide our diplomates with maximum flexibility in selecting the date and location of their examination. Information on the examination dates and locations is listed below:


    ACPM Prevention 2010
    Wednesday, February 17, 2010
    1:00 pm registration
    Hyatt Regency Crystal City at Reagan National Airport
    2799 Jefferson Davis Highway
    Arlington, Virginia, USA 22202


    ACOEM – AOHC
    Saturday, May 1, 2010
    1:00 pm registration
    Rosen Shingle Creek
    9939 Universal Blvd
    Orlando, Florida 32819


    AsMA Annual Scientific Meeting
    Sunday, May 9, 2010
    1:00 pm registration
    Sheraton Phoenix Downtown Hotel
    340 North 3rd Street
    Phoenix, AZ 85004


    ACPM Review Course
    Thursday, August 19, 2010
    10:00 am registration
    Hyatt Regency Crystal City at Reagan National Airport
    2799 Jefferson Davis Highway
    Arlington, Virginia, USA 22202


    ACOEM Fall Course Cluster
    Sunday, November 7, 2010
    1:00 pm registration
    Grand Hyatt Seattle
    721 Pine Street
    Seattle, Washington 98101


You may take the examination beginning three years before your certificate expires. Applications and fees will be accepted by the ABPM until 15 days prior to the examination or until seating capacity is filled. You can submit your application and examination fee online by logging into your EPIQ account at EPIQ Login or you may request a paper copy of the application by calling the Board office at 312-939-2276. Please note, online registration for the 2010 MOC examinations will not be available until early December after the final 2009 exam offering has been completed.

Examination Dates for Initial Certification

The 2010 examination will be administered at 200 Pearson VUE Professional Testing Centers across the United States. In addition, select international sites will also be available. In order to accommodate our candidates and to avoid problems with lack of seats at testing centers, the examination is offered over a two week period from October 4 to October 15, 2010.

Part 4 of Maintenance of Certification (MOC)

Practice Performance Assessment materials for completion of Part 4 of MOC are available through the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine (ACOEM) and the American College of Preventive Medicine (ACPM) and the Aerospace Medicine Association (AsMA). Please contact the appropriate specialty society for more detailed information.

ACOEM: www.acoem.org/moc.aspx

ACPM: www.acpm.org/education/moc_descr.htm

AsMA: Email Dr Susan Northrup for information

The ABPM now accepts AOA-accredited clinical years

Beginning with the 2008 application cycle, clinical training accredited by the AOA is now accepted by the Board if it includes at least six months of direct patient care comprising ambulatory and inpatient experience with hands-on patient care involving diagnostic workup and treatment of individual patients.
  © 2010 The American Board of Preventive Medicine, Inc.