About Board Certification

Certification by an ABMS Member Board helps demonstrate to the public that a physician and medical specialist meets nationally recognized standards for education, knowledge, experience, and skills and maintains their certification through continuous learning and practice improvement in order to provide high quality care in a specific medical specialty or subspecialty. Once board certified, the individual may be referred to as a diplomate of the board.

A physician who has met all the requirements for certification and has passed the certifying examination given by an ABMS Member Board is considered a diplomate of that board. If the individual is no longer certified in the future, then that individual is no longer referred to as a diplomate.

All physicians in the United States must be licensed in order to practice medicine, but they are not required to be certified. A license is issued by the physician’s state medical board. Certification requirements go above and beyond licensing requirements. It is not overseen by state regulatory boards. Earning and maintaining certification through an ABMS Member Board, represents a physician’s commitment to continually expand and refresh his or her knowledge and expertise in a particular medical specialty or subspecialty.

The ABMS Member Boards’ certification programs are rooted in the professional and educational standards set by ABMS and the Member Boards for medical specialty practice and certification. The program involves two basic phases of assessment within a continuous process: initial certification and maintaining certification. Initial certification occurs soon after completion of residency training. Each ABMS board has identified what candidates must accomplish to demonstrate competence in order to be eligible for initial certification. Generally, this involves:

• Finishing four years of premedical education in a college or university;
• Earning a medical degree (MD, DO or other credential approved by an ABMS Member Board) from a qualified medical school;
• Completing three to seven years of full-time experience in a residency training program accredited by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education;
• Providing letters of attestation from the program director and/or faculty; and
• Obtaining an unrestricted medical license to practice medicine in the United States or Canada.

Candidates for certification must then pass an exam created and administered by the specialty board. These exams are developed by physicians and others who are subject experts in the specific area of medicine. Exams are developed against learning requirements, extensively tested, and refined over time. This is done to assure that the exam is a thorough, relevant, and fair assessment of a physician’s medical knowledge, clinical judgment, and diagnostic skills. Candidates who have passed the exam and completed all other requirements are considered certified as a specialist and a diplomate of their board.

A similar eligibility process is followed for certified specialists seeking subspecialty certification. Candidates must be certified by their specialty board, then complete additional training during or after residency and successfully complete assessments of knowledge and clinical judgment in their subspecialty discipline before being granted certification in a subspecialty.

Additional requirements may need to be met by graduates of international medical programs before being allowed to sit for a certification examination. Check with the particular specialty board for more information.

ABMS defines board eligibility as the period of time between when a physician completes an accredited residency program and when initial certification in a specialty is achieved. On January 1, 2012, ABMS established its Board Eligibility Policy which places limits on this time period. The policy recognizes physicians’ need to use the term board eligible as a way to signal their preparations for specialty certification. At the same time, it closes off the potential for abuse through use of the term indefinitely.

ABMS Member Boards with an existing board eligibility policy aligned their board eligible periods with the principles of the established ABMS policy. Member Boards that did not have an existing policy in place established a board eligible period of 3 to 7 years for physicians to achieve initial certification following successful completion of accredited training plus time (if any) in practice. Additionally, the boards established transition dates for physician candidates who had completed training but not yet achieved initial certification in a specialty as of the ABMS policy’s effective date. Those boards chose a date between January 1, 2015 and January 1, 2019 for candidates to achieve initial certification.

When a physician does not achieve initial certification within the board eligibility period, that physician must cease from representing him/herself as being board eligible. The physician must again complete all requirements of the specialty board before admissibility to the certification examination.