Archive for October, 2008

The American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM) issued a press release today warning about scam certification boards. This poses a problem for both patients and physicians.

Doctors and nurses often have an “alphabet soup” after their names, representing certifications, memberships, and/or degrees. While many physicians are well-acquainted with the organizations in their particular discipline, patients usually are not. Patients, then, are at significant risk for being treated by frauds claiming to be “board certified” simply because they have a certificate from one of these “organizations”.

Already targets for identity theft by virtue of their high-paying jobs, doctors and nurses are at significant risk by these fraudulent organizations too. If they are so unethical as to pose as legitimate organizations and companies, what makes you think they would treat your sensitive personal and professional information as private and confidential?

If you are unsure about a particular group or organization, you can check the American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS) for contact information.

The ABIM is asking that anyone who is contacted for joining such a group to notify them immediately. You can email them at security@abim.org. Certainly, if you know of someone using fraudulent credentials, you should report them to the appropriate authorities. In your residency program, you would probably report it to Risk Management and the hospital’s credentialing officers.

Here’s the link to the press release again: Warning regarding scam “Certification Boards”

Identity theft and fraud are huge. And unfortunately, our residency programs do not teach us enough about them- how they happen or how to recognize them. As such, within the next few weeks, RookieDoctor.com will be releasing information on identity theft and what you can do o protect yourself.

OK, now that we’re in the thick of the residency application season and people are gearing up for their residency interviews, RookieDoctor.com has a Twitter-Only special. Here’s how it works…

If you’re not on Twitter, sign up… it’s free and it’s cool. You can read more about it at my first blog post about Twitter. Once you sign up, follow RookieDoc.

Then just send me a direct message through Twitter. Just type a letter “d” in the Twitter message box, followed by my user name “RookieDoc”. Then type your message and send it.

Your message should look something like this:

d RookieDoc Sign me up for the personal statement review.

If you are one of the first 5 to respond, I’ll send you a direct message notifying you of the next step (how to get your CV and/or personal statement to me, etc). All of this is free, of course, but for the first five only. Go to Twitter.com and sign up now.

So, you did pretty well, or maybe even great on the MCATs… You submitted your applications through ERAS… You were even granted a few interviews for internship and residency in top programs…

Now don’t screw it up.

If you’re thinking that you’ve been successful all your life, and that you’ve WOWed almost everyone you’ve met up to this point in your life… then you better hold on.

Being successful is fine… Being confident is also fine… But if you’re cocky or arrogant, you just might screw it up now. And here’s why:

Being a physician is just as much about being a “people person” as it is about knowing the medical science. In some cases, even more so. And one of those cases is in clinical practice. And another of those cases is actually getting in to your training program of choice.

You see, if you’re cocky, you are going to miss one of the most important people in the residency interview process. If you’re arrogant, you are going to go into that interview thinking that the only important people there are the interviewers. And if that’s the case, you are at high risk for not getting your program of choice… and rightfully so.

Any guess on who the most overlooked VIP of the residency program is?

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