The current president and chief executive officer of the American Board of Internal Medicine is Furman S. McDonald, MD, MPH.
[17] In addition, there appears to be a tightly knit, self-credentialed "patient safety/medical quality" industry developing in the United States, from which the authors of many of the studies supporting maintenance of certification have emerged.
[18] The American Board of Internal Medicine is an organization that attempts to assess physicians through proprietary testing and completion of required modules.
The American Board of Internal Medicine asserts that research shows that physician knowledge deteriorates and practice habits and patterns fail to change, over time, in response to medical advances.
In a press release, the American Board of Internal Medicine apologized that it had "clearly got it wrong", and it admitted that the program changes in January 2014 were instituted prematurely.
And it is very proud of its "Choosing Wisely" program, an initiative "to help providers and patients engage in conversations to reduce overuse of tests and procedures," with pamphlets, videos and other means.
[24] Using simulation modeling of the entire American Board of Internal Medicine-certified workforce of US physicians, researchers from the University of California San Francisco and Stanford University estimated that the Feb 2015 version of American Board of Internal Medicine Maintenance of Certification would cost $5.7 billion over ten years, including $561 million in American Board of Internal Medicine's fees and $5.1 billion in time costs (arising from 32.7 million physician hours spent completing Maintenance of Certification requirements).
The authors concluded that "A rigorous evaluation of its effect on clinical and economic outcomes is warranted to balance potential gains in health care quality and efficiency against the high costs identified in this study.
Much of the controversy about the recent behavior of the American Board of Internal Medicine is detailed on their new competitor's website, including a debate between the rival parties.