I believe we all have an interest in having a credential that would give those of us who have studied and worked hard to become knowledgeable, skilled and competent in musculoskeletal medicine some credibility. There are however a few large barriers to getting this credential from the Institute for Credentialing Excellence (ICE).
The creation of a certificaTION test that has a credential from ICE is a complex process that has some strict requirements. This test must be focused solely on the assessment of the participants. Just a few of the more relevant requirements are:
- It includes all the stakeholders.
- It is independent of a specific class, course or other education/training program.
- It is independent of any provider of classes, courses or programs.
- The certification program provider is NOT the sole provider of any education or training that may be required of certification.
- It goal is the independent assessment of a professional who has specific work-related tasks and responsibilities against predetermined standards in their profession:
- Knowledge
- Skills
- Competencies
Because the creation of a certification test is such a daunting task ICE has spent many hours over several years to develop a way to aid groups in meeting the criteria for creating a certification test that meets their standards. Their solution was to create the Assessment Based Certificate. The a limited list of the goals of this certificate are
- Provide education, instruction and training to aid in acquiring specific knowledge skills or competencies
- Evaluates participants achievement of the intended learning outcomes
- Awards a certificate only to those participants who meet the performance, proficiency or passing standards.
- The certificate program provider conducts or sponsors the education/training that is required for the certificate.
Certification by what we call orthopedic, musculoskeletal medicine, or regenerative medicine AAMSM, AAOM, Hackett – Hemwall or even REGENXX and other stakeholders cannot be done alone. As individual organizations we will not be able to get certificaTION only certificATES. That will require all of the relevant ‘stake holders’ to create tests to evaluate the mastery of all the subjects that make up:
- Orthopedic medicine (OM)
- Regenerative medicine,
- Prolotherapy,
- Manipulation,
- Neural therapy,
- Neural-prolotherapy,
- Ozone therapy,
- And the basic sciences of these subjects.
Once all the relevant stakeholders have refined their ABC tests we can all get together and create a certification. At this point we are clearly several years away from being able to create such a test.
In the meantime we will individually need to create our own ABC tests. Hopefully each organization will find what it likes to teach, what it is good at teaching and do so with as much vigor as they can muster. These certificates will require considerable effort as generating test questions and methods to evaluate the fundamental skills embodied in all the above listed subjects is not an easy task and many individuals will be involved.
The AAMSM already has an assessment-based certificate program up and running. There is plenty of work for all of us to do Before Certification is a reality
Click here to learn more about ICE, and the difference between a certificate and certification
