Are the American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS) and the American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM) violating US physicians’ right to privacy through their online certification process?
Who is in charge of ABMS/ABIM testing security? ABIM has been advertising Maintenance of Certification® (MOC®) using two-year assessments in the “privacy of your home or office.” They are avoiding the obvious fact that they are not ready and the platform is wholly untested for the theft of identity, credit cards, bank accounts, email content, patient information, and the whole gamut of personal and professional information. If the American College of Cardiology (ACC) is involved with the ABIM to promote their products, then they, too, are either totally ignorant of this or purposefully turning a blind eye to this reality. Recall that ABIM’s former Direector of Test Security was never formally disclosed to physicians in 2008, nor was his departure from ABIM last year. That individual used an online alias that never hinted at his past nor disclosed his relationship with the shady test security firm, Caveon, with whom the ABIM is using for their (unsecure) Knowledge Check-in’s. It was only after a Puerto Rican physician who was sued by the ABIM for possible copyright infringment (a case which they lost), that the true identity and troubling background of ABIM’s Test Security Director became known. That Test Security Director’s also worked (works?) for Caveon. Caveon uses a former Ballard Spahr (ABIM’s legal team) lawyer, Mr. Marc Weinstein, to target test-takers they feel may have cheated. This opens a huge Pandora’s Box of concerns for physicians who undergo online “continuous certification.” The potential to ruin a physician’s hard-earned reputation and professional credibility on the basis of an online proctor’s insinuation of an errant keystroke pattern or suspicious gaze during testing without due process is real. And Caveon’s system test security system offers no credible safeguards against identity or credit card theft, or mirror-imaging of our computer’s files or keystrokes for their purposes.Are physicians really going to allow such testing tactics to occur in our own homes?
Not only no, but hell no.
This MOC® craziness has to stop. It is now officially violating physicians’ civil liberty protections.
-Wes
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