The American Board of Sleep Medicine (ABSM) is a nonprofit organization that certifies physicians, PhDs, specialists, and technologists in the specialty of

sleep medicine Sleep medicine is a medical specialty or subspecialty devoted to the diagnosis and therapy of sleep disturbances and sleep disorder, disorders. From the middle of the 20th century, research has provided increasing knowledge and answered many ...

. ABSM shares office space and at least some staff with the

American Academy of Sleep Medicine The American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM) is a United States professional society for the medical subspecialty of sleep medicine which includes disorders of circadian rhythms. It was established in 1975. The organization's functions include t ...

(AASM) in Darien, Illinois, USA; the two organizations are closely related and serve basically the same constituency. In the past, the ABSM has offered four distinct examinations: * Sleep Medicine Specialty Certification Examination * Behavioral Sleep Medicine Certification Examination * Sleep Technologist Registry Examination * Sleep Scoring Proficiency Examination the ABSM still offers one examination: * Registered Sleep Technologist Examination (RST) The first two exams were offered mainly to

physician A physician (American English), medical practitioner (Commonwealth English), medical doctor, or simply doctor, is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through th ...

s ( MDs and

DOs DOS is shorthand for the MS-DOS and IBM PC DOS family of operating systems. DOS may also refer to: Computing * Data over signalling (DoS), multiplexing data onto a signalling channel * Denial-of-service attack (DoS), an attack on a communicatio ...

). However, non-physicians have taken and passed the exams. These have been mainly

PhDs A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is a ...

and DDSs. Therefore, the ABSM has put a disclaimer in its website cautioning everyone who has passed the exams to only practice medicine within the legal limits allowed. Those passing the Sleep Medicine Specialty Exam received the designation "diplomate of the ABSM." As of 2006 3,445 persons had been awarded this designation. As of 2007 the ABSM stopped administering this exam. Now member boards of the

American Board of Medical Specialties Established in 1933, the American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS) is a non-profit organization which represent 24 broad areas of specialty medicine. ABMS is the largest physician-led specialty certification organization in the United States ...

offer specialty exams. The third and fourth exams on the list are geared toward sleep technologists. The Sleep Scoring Proficiency Examination is intended for those interested in the taking the Sleep Technologist Registry Examination. The latter exam was implemented in August 2011. The credential awarded to the individual passing this exam is the Registered Sleep Technologist (RST) credential. The first persons awarded the RST were Registered Polysomnographic Technologists (

RPSGT A polysomnographic technologist (formerly called a polysomnographic technician) performs overnight, daytime, or home sleep studies, polysomnograms, on people with suspected sleep disorders. In the United States and worldwide, the process for becom ...

s) who met the criteria the ABSM set forth to bypass taking the exam. The first RST credentials were awarded in August 2011. By September 11, 2011, 975 RST credentials were awarded; ten days later 1,549 individuals held this credential. The ABSM and the AASM have both been involved in promoting and explaining the rationale for the RST credential. Within the sleep community there has been much discussion and some disagreement about the launching of the RST credential when credentials already exist for the RPSGT (from the Board of Registered Polysomnographic Technologists (BRPT)) and the RRT-SDS and CRT-SDS (from the

American Association of Sleep Technologists The American Association of Sleep Technologists (AAST) is an organization that promotes the interests of sleep technologists. It promotes standardized education for sleep technicians, sleep technologists and sleep center managers. It spends resour ...

(AAST)). The July/August 2011 issue of ''Sleep Review'' magazine has an editorial and an article where the RST credential is discussed.

References

Further reading