Some specialty boards aim to raise patient awareness

Board leaders said certification can be a valuable tool for assessing doctors.

By Damon Adams, AMNews staff. June 18, 2007.

Certifying board leaders want your patients to do a more thorough check to see if you are board certified.

A study in the June issue of the Journal of Pediatrics found that in eight states an average 11% of physicians who say they are pediatricians in state licensure files had not been board certified as pediatricians by the American Board of Pediatrics.

Researchers also said 12% of surveyed physicians in those states considered themselves pediatricians but had not completed pediatric residency training.

Many patients are not aware if their physician is board certified.

"[The study] is a heads-up to the public to question people who are providing care," said ABP President James A. Stockman III, MD, whose board commissioned the study.

Researchers examined state licensure data for active physicians in two states for each region of the nation: Ohio and Wisconsin, Texas and Mississippi, Massachusetts and Maryland and Oregon and Arizona. The list of physicians who identified themselves as pediatricians to licensing agencies was then matched to the ABP's list of board-certified pediatricians.

"Most parents likely assume their physicians are board certified if they are identified as a particular specialist," said lead author Gary L. Freed, MD, MPH, director of the Child Health Evaluation and Research Unit at the University of Michigan C.S. Mott Children's Hospital. "We found a significant proportion of [doctors] claiming to be pediatricians who have never been board certified."