Leaders of a group convened to establish a new, independent board for cardiology are reviewing options after the American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS) rejected their application to establish the American Board of Cardiovascular Medicine and invoked a 2-year wait time to reapply.
The ABMS rejected the application on February 26, just over a year after five societies — the American College of Cardiology (ACC), the American Heart Association (AHA), the Heart Failure Society of America (HFSA), the Heart Rhythm Society (HRS), and the Society for Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions (SCAI) — submitted a formal application for a new board of cardiovascular medicine, which would be governed by cardiologists, operating under the ABMS.
‘We Are Deeply Disappointed’
“We are deeply disappointed,” American Board of Cardiovascular Medicine President Jeffrey Kuvin, MD, chair of cardiology at Northwell Health in New York, said in a statement. “The decision ignores the evolution of cardiovascular medicine into its own distinct medical specialty, separate from the field of internal medicine, requiring its own set of knowledge, skills, and competencies to sustain professional excellence and effectively care for cardiovascular patients.”
“We are not done with this fight,” he explained in an interview. “The profession needs to be governed by cardiologists. Clinician competency, in all of our estimation, [should] not [be] based on a timed examination [when] you’ve been practicing for 30 years.”
Some of the reasons for the denial stated in the ABMS letter focused on “the financial feasibility of a new board,” Kuvin pointed out.
Financial Feasibility Questioned
“We put forth many analyses pro forma to suggest that if we are awarded an independent board of cardiovascular medicine, we believe wholeheartedly that this would be a financially feasible new board. We knew that this would be a controversial step because it would take the existing certification from the ABIM [American Board of Internal Medicine] a