Shows how worthless board certification is
A bunch of sheep indeed, soviet sheep
Back in a prior millennium (century)… when I graduated med school in 1972…. The attainment of licensure and certification were looked upon as a goal to achieve. But that has become a tool of manipulation! Lets see— graduate medical school, take State Board exam for license, take General surgery board, and all of a sudden general surgery splits out into vascular surgery as well as other subspecialties, so I took vascular surgery exam. Of course after thoracic surgery training, I had to take thoracic surgery board exam. So therefore I was triple board-certified. I should’ve known this was coming when I saw the boards further subdivided into critical care, under three different boards, hepatobiliary, hand surgery,… so the dilution of the board certification process was apparent to me. In all due respect to those who have served on the officer side of the board, I slowly began to not have even heard of any of the people who were sitting in those seats.
The other thing that happened of note, was the process of credentialing for Surgical privileges in hospitals. While in Houston, it was very simple, one just wrote down the word “surgery”. But soon there after, one had to request for surgical privileges by surgical operation not only an area of specialization. For example using a laser required privileges based upon the wavelength of the laser. I thought that was insane. What was specially insane was that most of the time the chairman of the surgical committee or sub committee in the hospital, was a general surgeon who didn’t know a transaxillary first rib resection from an axillofemoral vascular bypass from a maze procedure. These people who were high and lifted up and expected to be the best of the best we’re truly clueless.
Having practiced in Dallas, I would still be very comfortable sending patients to Dr. McCullough, or even seeing him as a patient myself. Unfortunately, the hospitals of the today are run by two-year wonder MBA graduates without an MD degree, without any medical training necessarily, and all of the requirements for credentialing in the hospital are becoming more and more worthless from the standpoint of the physician.
Add to that, the MOC. Maintenance of certification, came with a steep price tag for the doctor, as well as a silly test to require the doctor to take another exam, at five years instead of the 10 year usual re-certification exam. Of course back in the 70s and 80s, all of the great generals of the trade, grandfathered themselves in and gave them themselves certification for life and never had to do the extra cost and interruption of practice to continue with board certification with maintenance of certification. Briefly stated, it is a money rip off.
All the COVID question aside, Dr McCullogh is still A duly licensed physician in the state of Texas, a superb cardiologist and a very smart doctor. The people who are not smart are the American Board of internal medicine leader ship who are a bunch of political politburo members. Mr Kirsch is correct that the physicians in America are a bunch of sheep. I would say that they are a bunch of scared sheep, afraid of being socially shamed, and losing their board certification and thus their privileges in a hospital and thus the ability to make a living and feed their family. The sovietization of America is nearly complete.
Here is Steve’s superb commentary…
Peter McCullough is a great physician and can teach the ABIM more than they can learn , for lack of a better term. Dr. Seldin is agreat example
Excellent! It happened in my profession too; I.e., the sovietization aspect of replacing leadership and Board positions with politburo clowns. Lysenkoism has deep roots.