As the boards seek to impose MOC on older physicians, many are considering, or are taking, early retirement. Was the ABMS’s intention to eliminate a wealth of clinical experience with MOC? Will our senior clinicians be there long enough to pass on their clinical expertise to the next generation? Can MOC adequately capture and quantify the loss of our older colleagues? They inspired us with dreams and a sense of possibility for our professional lives – even when they were dented by the constraints imposed on us by the insurance industry. Did anyone ever imagine that our own boards would adopt similar tactics?
If we are to sleep well and reclaim our dreams of looking after patients with the best information available, we will, as a group, have to ask these questions and insist on proper answers. But we will need a unified voice.
It took a concerted effort and 20,000 signatures – a grassroots movement – to get a response from the ABIM. Because any criticism of MOC is portrayed as laziness or irresponsibility, rather than a legitimate concern about its methods, there is little doubt that it will take a similar effort in psychiatry.
Dr. Rosin is clinical assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of British Columbia and a community geriatric psychiatrist in Vancouver.