The American Board of Integrative Holistic Medicine (ABIHM) was incorporated in 1996 to certify physicians through a psychometrically validated examination process. Since 2000, when we provided our first exam, we have certified nearly 1500 physicians. The process of educating physicians through our Annual Review Course and our extensive Core Curriculum has established a grounding and common knowledge base for those seeking board certification in integrative holistic medicine. Over the last few years, our Board of Directors has proposed more stringent criteria for board certification in Integrative Medicine (IM). The path of all medical specialties and subspecialties, as they gain more widespread acceptance and growing professional acknowledgement, is to require formal training as one of the conditions of sitting for a board certification examination.
A number of educational institutions now offer fellowship programs in IM, and the leader in Integrative Medicine fellowship training has been the University of Arizona’s Program in Integrative Medicine. The ABIHM had previously approached the University of Arizona (U of A) to explore the possibility of board certification. Although the U of A was not ready to move forward at that time, they have now taken a leadership role in the formation of a new board to explore this opportunity, and they recently announced that they have contracted with the American Board of Physician Specialties (ABPS) to develop a new board and certification process for those with formal IM training.
The ABPS and the U of A have invited several current ABIHM board members to participate in developing this newly formed organization. This new board, with membership derived from the leadership of academic IM programs from across the US, will meet for the first time on October 10th and 11th in Tampa, Florida. At this time the specifications for eligibility in this new certification process have not been created. An important goal of the ABIHM is to support our current active diplomates and to advocate for their eligibility in certifying with this new board. We recognize that the opportunity for certification of physicians without formal training in Integrative Medicine will end soon.
We support this process and view it as the logical extension of our efforts over the last 15 years to bring credibility and acknowledgement to this emerging specialty within medicine. As this process unfolds, we will post updates on our website.
Though we have little further information, if you have questions or comments on this new development, please write to our Executive Director, Nancy Sudak, at nsudak@holisticboard.org.
Bill Manahan, MD, ABIHM
Being an ABIHM Diplomate gave me the knowledge and assurance that what I did in my practice on a daily basis was based on a body of knowledge approved of and validated by a cohort of my professional integrative holistic medicine colleagues.
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We offer the following update regarding the initial meeting with the ABPS in Tampa in early October. The current direction is to offer our certification exam at least through 2012, and possibly into 2013, when the new ABPS Board Exam becomes available. We will continue to offer our Recertification process for our Diplomates into the foreseeable future. Current Diplomates of the ABIHM are anticipated to be forgiven the fellowship requirement, but will likely be required to have undergone a prescribed number of integrative CME credits (as yet undetermined). The fellowship requirement has also not been fully determined yet. All ABIHM Diplomates who wish to obtain the new Board Certification process must sit for the new exam, but will not be subject to the fellowship requirement.
We will continue to offer updates as the process unfolds.
Nancy Sudak, MD, ABIHM
Executive Director
admin@abihm.org
The ABIHM is currently continuing its certification process until the ABoIM requirements are fully established. We hope to have more to report in the very near future!
Progress has been made regarding the development of the American Board of Integrative Medicine, but the eligibility criteria have not yet been made public. The ABIHM has scheduled an additional exam in November 2013, following our Annual Review Course; this will most likely be the final ABIHM certification exam. When the ABoIM eligibility requirements are published, we will direct you to them from our website.
The ABPS has published the launch of the American Board of Integrative Medicine (ABoIM)! We encourage you to learn about the ABoIM and the eligibility requirements directly from the ABPS website, at http://www.abpsus.org/integrative-medicine. The ABIHM will discontinue our certification exam sometime after the end of 2013 when the new board exam is available.