American Board of Surgery
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The American Board of Surgery (ABS) is an independent, non-profit organization located in
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...
, founded for the purpose of certifying surgeons who have met a defined standard of education, training and knowledge. Surgeons certified by the ABS, known as diplomates, have completed a minimum of five years of surgical residency training following medical school and successfully completed a written and oral examination process administered by the ABS. The ABS provides board certification in
general surgery General surgery is a surgical specialty that focuses on alimentary canal and abdominal contents including the esophagus, stomach, small intestine, large intestine, liver, pancreas, gallbladder, appendix and bile ducts, and often the thyroid ...
, vascular surgery, pediatric surgery, surgical critical care, surgery of the hand, hospice and palliative medicine, and complex general surgical oncology. The ABS is composed of a board of directors representing the principal surgical organizations in the U.S. and is one of the 24 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 ...
.


History

The American Board of Surgery was officially organized on January 9, 1937. The formation of the ABS was the result of a committee formed a year earlier by the
American Surgical Association The American Surgical Association is the oldest surgical organization in the United States. History It was founded in 1880. Their publication, ''Annals of Surgery'', was started in 1885. A collection of the association's papers are held at the Nat ...
with representatives from the
American College of Surgeons The American College of Surgeons is an educational association of surgeons created in 1913.American College of Surgeons Online "What is the American College of Surgeons?"/ref> See also *American College of Physicians The American College o ...
,
American Medical Association The American Medical Association (AMA) is a professional association and lobbying group of physicians and medical students. Founded in 1847, it is headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. Membership was approximately 240,000 in 2016. The AMA's state ...
and the Southern, Western, Pacific Coast and New England Surgical Associations. The leaders of these organizations, including such figures as Drs. Edward Archibald,
Evarts Ambrose Graham Evarts Ambrose Graham (1883–1957) was an American academic, physician, and surgeon. Early years and military service Born in Chicago, Illinois to a surgeon, Dr. David Wilson Graham, and Ida Ansbach Barned Graham, Evarts attended college at Prin ...
and
Allen Whipple Allen Oldfather Whipple (September 2, 1881 – April 6, 1963) was an American surgeon who is known for the pancreatic cancer operation which bears his name (the Whipple procedure) as well as Whipple's triad. Whipple was born to missionary paren ...
, had recognized for some time the need to differentiate well-trained surgeons who had limited their practice to surgery from doctors in general practice. They also felt that surgery as a field of medicine had matured into a full-time specialty. The committee established the basic principles for a national certifying body for surgeons practicing in the U.S. The committee decided that the ABS should be formed of members from the represented organizations and, once organized, it would establish a comprehensive certification process. These findings and recommendations were approved by the cooperating societies, leading to the board's formation in 1937. This was done to protect the public and improve the specialty.


Certification

Certification by the American Board of Surgery is a voluntary process, meant to designate individuals who have met the highest standards of education, training and knowledge in surgery. Board certification is different from medical
licensure Licensure means a restricted practice or a restriction on the use of an occupational title, requiring a license. A license created under a "practice act" requires a license before performing a certain activity, such as driving a car on public roa ...
, which is required by law for an individual to practice medicine. Upon completion of training at an accredited U.S. or Canadian residency program, a surgeon may apply to the ABS for certification. The applicant's training and operative experience are reviewed by the ABS, and the director of the training program must also attest to the applicant's professionalism and ethics, as well as surgical skills. If these are all satisfactory, the applicant is admitted to the ABS examinations required for certification. Upon successful completion of these examinations, the surgeon becomes a diplomate of the ABS. Certification in general surgery is a prerequisite for certification in pediatric surgery, surgical critical care, surgery of the hand, hospice and palliative medicine, and complex general surgical oncology.


Continuing Certification

To maintain certification, diplomates must demonstrate ongoing professionalism and commitment to continuing medical education (through seminars, lectures, reading of journals) and pass a written examination. In 2018, the ABS introduced a new program, the ABS Continuous Certification Program (CC), to replace what was previously known as
Maintenance of Certification (MOC) Maintenance of Certification (MOC) is a recently implemented and controversial process of physician certification maintenance through one of the 24 approved medical specialty boards of the American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS) and the 18 ap ...
. Compared to MOC, which required a secure recertification examination at 10-year intervals, CC is a broader professional development program with more frequent requirements for learning and assessment. CC documents a surgeon's ongoing commitment to professionalism, lifelong learning, and practice improvement following initial board certification, and the new program has been designed to provide flexible, high-quality, practice-related learning and assessment to support surgeons in their practice.


See also

*
American Osteopathic Board of Surgery The American Osteopathic Board of Surgery (AOBS) is an organization that provides board certification to qualified Doctors of Osteopathic Medicine (D.O.) who specialize in the use of surgery to aid in the diagnosis and treatment of disease (surge ...


References


External links


American Board of Surgery

American Board of Medical Specialties
{{Authority control Non-profit organizations based in Pennsylvania American Surgical Association