American Board of Internal Medicine, 510 Walnut St., Ste. 1700, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, USA.
ABFM, Lexington, USA.
J Gen Intern Med. 2019 Sep;34(9):1790-1796. doi: 10.1007/s11606-019-05118-z. Epub 2019 Jul 3.
A key component of Maintenance of Certification (MOC) for family and internal medicine physicians is the requirement to pass a periodic examination of medical knowledge. Little is known about the effects of preparing for MOC exams on knowledge and practice.
To understand how MOC exam preparation can affect knowledge and practice.
Qualitative, semi-structured interviews, 45-60 min each, conducted by telephone at participants' convenience.
A total of 80 primary care physicians from the American Board of Family Medicine (ABFM) and the American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM) who had recently taken an MOC exam; the sample purposefully selected to represent diversity of experiences with MOC exams and range of opinions about MOC, as well as diversity of participant backgrounds-gender, practice type, etc. APPROACH: Close analysis of physicians' accounts of what they learned when preparing for an MOC exam and how this knowledge affected their practice.
Sixty-seven of 80 physicians stated they gained knowledge relevant to their practice. Sixty-three gave concrete examples of how this affected their practice, including direct changes to patient care (e.g., improved diagnosis or prescribing and reduced unnecessary testing) or less direct changes (e.g., improved ability to co-manage with other providers or communicate with patients). Physicians also described sharing what they learned with others, including peers and trainees.
Interviews could have been affected by recall and/or social desirability bias, as well as researchers' role as board staff. Although we followed a recruitment protocol designed to mitigate recruitment acceptance bias, our findings may not be generalizable to wider groups of physicians.
Most physicians from two primary care specialties interviewed reported ways in which studying for an MOC exam resulted in acquiring knowledge that was both relevant and beneficial to their patient care.
家庭医学和内科医师的继续医学教育（MOC）的一个关键组成部分是通过定期的医学知识考试的要求。关于准备 MOC 考试对知识和实践的影响知之甚少。
了解 MOC 考试准备如何影响知识和实践。
定性，半结构化访谈，每次 45-60 分钟，在参与者方便的时候通过电话进行。
来自美国家庭医学委员会（ABFM）和美国内科委员会（ABIM）的总共 80 名初级保健医生，他们最近参加了 MOC 考试；该样本旨在代表 MOC 考试经验的多样性和对 MOC 的各种看法，以及参与者背景的多样性-性别、实践类型等。
仔细分析医生在准备 MOC 考试时所学知识以及这些知识如何影响他们的实践的情况。
80 名医生中有 67 名表示他们获得了与实践相关的知识。63 人具体举例说明了这如何影响他们的实践，包括直接改变患者护理（例如，改善诊断或处方，减少不必要的检查）或间接改变（例如，改善与其他提供者共同管理或与患者沟通的能力）。医生还描述了与他人分享他们所学到的知识，包括同行和学员。
访谈可能会受到回忆和/或社会期望偏差以及研究人员作为董事会工作人员的角色的影响。尽管我们遵循了旨在减轻招聘接受偏差的招聘协议，但我们的发现可能不适用于更广泛的医生群体。
接受采访的来自两个初级保健专业的大多数医生报告了他们学习 MOC 考试的方式，这些方式导致获得了对他们的患者护理既有相关又有益的知识。
