Board Certification - Defining A Medical Specialty

Defining A Medical Specialty

The core body of knowledge that defines an area of medical specialization is referred to as the core competencies for that specialty. Core competencies are developed through detailed review of the medical literature combined with review by recognized experts from established medical specialties, experts within the new area of specialization and experts from outside the medical profession. This list of core knowledge and skills is then compiled into a draft core competency document.

Once the core competency document is drafted, the certifying organization and its associated professional academy, college or society review the document against the existing literature and again solicit expert opinion regarding the domains of competence and areas of competency contained in the document. The core competencies are next formatted using a psychometric taxonomy such as Bloom's Taxonomy based on the core competencies required by physicians practicing in the area of specialization as non-specialists and as specialists or sub-specialists. Development of the first core competency document takes five to ten years and is a prerequisite to creating the certification examination.

Read more about this topic:  Board Certification

Famous quotes containing the words defining, medical and/or specialty:

    Art, if one employs this term in the broad sense that includes poetry within its realm, is an art of creation laden with ideals, located at the very core of the life of a people, defining the spiritual and moral shape of that life.
    Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev (1818–1883)

    They said I’d never get you back again.
    I tell you what you’ll never really know:
    all the medical hypothesis
    that explained my brain will never be as true as these
    struck leaves letting go.
    Anne Sexton (1928–1974)

    ... to a specialist his specialty is the whole of everything and if his specialty is in good order and it generally is then everything must be succeeding.
    Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)