The American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS) Member Boards have unveiled a comprehensive initiative aimed at eliminating bias and promoting health equity in their certification exams and continuing education programs. This effort, part of their commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), seeks to ensure fair assessment practices and support health equity across medical specialties.
Key components of the initiative include collecting robust demographic data from board-certified physicians, removing bias from exams, providing implicit bias training, incorporating health equity content in assessments, and developing quality improvement activities to reduce health disparities.
Many Member Boards are enhancing their data collection methods to gather more detailed information on race, ethnicity, and gender. This data is crucial for conducting equity analyses of certification exams and identifying potential disparities in exam performance.
To address bias in exams, boards are implementing various strategies. For instance, the American Board of Pediatrics conducts annual differential item functioning (DIF) analyses and uses Bias and Sensitivity Review panels to identify and remove potentially biased questions. Similarly, the American Board of Family Medicine has published results of DIF analyses and is actively working to eliminate biased items from their exams.
Implicit bias training for item writers and examiners has become a standard practice across many boards. The American Board of Orthopaedic Surgery and the American Board of Plastic Surgery have implemented mandatory bias training programs for their examiners and item writers.
Several boards are also incorporating health equity content into their continuing certification programs. For example, the American Board of Anesthesiology has revised its MOCA Content Outline to include sections on health disparities and DEI, while the American Board of Dermatology has established a dedicated Content Advisory Group focused on Skin of Color and Gender Identity Disparities.
This multi-faceted initiative represents a significant step towards ensuring that board certification processes are fair, unbiased, and supportive of health equity across all medical specialties.
See:”ABMS Member Boards Strive to Remove Bias, Promote Health Equity in Their Exams, Programs” (December 3, 2024)