Verification of residency completion
ISSUE SUMMARY
The Accreditation Council on Graduate Medical Education mandates that Residency Program Directors verify that a resident is competent to practice medicine independently at the time of graduation. Hospital medical staffs and state medical boards are responsible for assuring the quality of medical care provided to patients and they are also tasked with determining the competencies of physicians applying for privileges or medical licensure. Each of these groups request information from residency program directors regarding the qualifications of applicants, many of whom graduated from the program several years in the past. However, residency directors have infrequent contact with prior residents subsequent to the end of their training, and after several years post-graduation, are not in a good position to assess the applicant’s competency.
ADOPTED ACTION OR POLICY
KMS should introduce a resolution in the AMA House of Delegates requesting the AMA work with the American Hospital Association and the Federation of State Medical Boards to limit the evaluations required of residency program directors, for residents graduating three or more years previously, to objective data, including the residency program’s name, the dates of the physician’s training and whether the given physician completed the residency training program.
Adopted by the KMS House of Delegates on May 1, 2010.
