Each year, ACEP Now catches up with the President of the American Board of Emergency Medicine to discuss the state of the specialty, training priorities and education trends. Recently, ACEP Now Medical Editor in Chief Cedric Dark, MD, MPH, FACEP, and ABEM President Diane L. Gorgas, MD, sat down for a quick update.

Dr. Dark: First, I want to start by learning a little bit more about you. Can you tell us about your journey through emergency medicine, how you wound up joining ABEM, and how you took on the role of leading the organization?

Dr. Gorgas: I finished my emergency medicine and residency training in 1994. I got involved with ABEM early in my career. Right after being board certified, I waited for the obligatory five years and then became an oral examiner. I found ABEM to really be a dynamic organization and one whose mission I really believe in. I’ve had the privilege – or misfortune depending on your perspective – of being a patient and having family members who are emergency medicine patients. I realize how important it is on both sides of the curtain and what that patient-physician interface and interaction looks like. It has really spurred me on in my continued volunteer activity with ABEM.

I am also a clinically active emergency physician. I’m Vice Chair of Academic Affairs and the Executive Director for Global Health at The Ohio State University.

Dr. Dark: I’ve heard a lot from some newer graduates and people that are in training now about the changes to the certifying oral examination. It’s transitioning from virtual back to in person. Can you talk a little bit about the impetus for ABEM to switch it back to an in-person exam from what it’s been for the past few years?

Dr. Gorgas: Conceptually, I think it’s important to understand that this is not the old oral examination. It will look nothing like what you took, or what I took, as part of an exam. The new certifying exam was the outcome of a two-year-long fact-finding mission to ask, “what is the critical skill set of an emergency physician? What part of that critical skill set are we at ABEM obligated to assess? And what are we assessing now? What were we assessing in 2022 when we started this process? And how much of a slice of the pie is that?” Is it fair to say that somebody is competent without ever looking at their procedure skills, without ever looking at their Ultrasound skills, without ever looking at their patient communication skills, without ever realizing how they manage a changing clinical course?