RESEARCH LETTER
Mingliang Dai, PhD; Andrew Bazemore, MD, MPH
Corresponding Author: Mingliang Dai, PhD; American Board of Family Medicine
Email: mdai@theabfm.org
DOI: 10.3122/jabfm.2023.230376R1
Keywords: Certification, Family Medicine, Family Physicians, Specialty Boards
Dates: Submitted: 10-17-2023; Revised: 05-28-2024; Accepted: 06-03-2024
FINAL PUBLICATION: |HTML| |PDF|
OBJECTIVE: To assess the relationship between the timing of certification stage completion and subsequent certification examination outcomes among board-certified family physicians (FPs).
METHODS: We analyzed administrative data from the American Board of Family Medicine to determine whether timely completion of certification stage, i.e., completing all stage requirements before the deadline, was associated with FPs’ passing their subsequent exam to continue their certification and their exam score.
RESULTS: Among 22,122 FPs, 79.7% completed their stage timely while 20.3% did so past the deadline. After adjusting for potential confounders, FPs with timely stage completion were twice more likely to pass the exam (O.R.=2.03, p<0.01) and scored 24 points higher (p<0.01) compared to their counterparts with late completion.
CONCLUSION: While the difference in exam score was trivial, late compared to timely completion of certification stage was associated with doubled risks of FPs failing the exam. This study offered an invaluable insight for improving the certification process and ensuring the competence of FPs.