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Viewpoint
September 2014

The Future of Board Certification: Learning Is Competency

Author Affiliations
  • 1The American Board of Pediatrics, Chapel Hill, North Carolina
JAMA Pediatr. 2014;168(9):789-790. doi:10.1001/jamapediatrics.2014.943

Although its wording has evolved, the essence of the mission of the American Board of Pediatrics (ABP) has not changed: to certify “pediatricians based on standards of excellence that lead to high-quality health care during infancy, childhood, adolescence, and the transition to adulthood.” The ABP needs assessments embedded in clinical practice and improved patient outcomes as the explicit metric for excellence, which will require a commitment to continuous learning. This Viewpoint proposes ways for a certifying board to underscore learning as the most important competency for the physician while acknowledging that any new approach must be pilot tested and subject to rigorous evaluation.

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