American Board of Medical Specialties

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The American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS) is a non-profit umbrella organization for the 24 approved medical specialty boards in the United States. It is the leading entity overseeing physician certification in the United States. The ABMS assists its Member Boards in developing and implementing educational and professional standards to evaluate and certify physician specialists.

ABMS is recognized by the key healthcare accreditation organizations as a primary equivalent source of board certification data on medical specialists for credentialing purposes.

[edit] History

The concept of a specialty board was first proposed in 1908 by Dr. Derrick T. Vail. In 1917, ophthalmology became the first officially incorporated board. The second specialty board, the American Board of Otolaryngology, was founded and incorporated in 1924. The American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology (1930) and the American Board of Dermatology and Syphilology (1932) followed. In 1934 an advisory board for all four specialty groups was organized. By 1948 there were 18 specialty boards. By 1979 there were 23. In 1991 ABMS added a 24th board on Medical Genetics.

From 1933 to 1970, the Advisory Board operated as a federation of individual specialty boards. In 1970, the membership voted to reorganize the Advisory Board as the American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS), which was implemented that year. In 1971, ABMS became on the the five groups involved in continuing medical education. In 1971, the newly formed Committee on Study of Evaluation Procedures became responsible for education and research. In 1975, they adopted the policy statement, The Significance of Certification in Medical Specialties, and guidelines on recertification were published. [1]