ArticleJournal of general internal medicine2019
"That Was Pretty Powerful": a Qualitative Study of What Physicians Learn When Preparing for Their Maintenance-of-Certification Exams.
Article in Journal of general internal medicine, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
1 citing paper in PubMed, 12 citations in OpenAlex.
- Cognitive perspectives on maintaining physicians' medical expertise: V. Using a motivational framework to understand the benefits and costs of testing.Cognitive research: principles and implications · 2023Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundA key component of Maintenance of Certification (MOC) for family and internal medicine physicians is the requirement to pass a periodic examination of medical knowledge. Little is known about the effects of preparing for MOC exams on knowledge and practice.
objectiveTo understand how MOC exam preparation can affect knowledge and practice.
designQualitative, semi-structured interviews, 45-60 min each, conducted by telephone at participants' convenience.
participantsA total of 80 primary care physicians from the American Board of Family Medicine (ABFM) and the American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM) who had recently taken an MOC exam; the sample purposefully selected to represent diversity of experiences with MOC exams and range of opinions about MOC, as well as diversity of participant backgrounds-gender, practice type, etc. APPROACH: Close analysis of physicians' accounts of what they learned when preparing for an MOC exam and how this knowledge affected their practice.
resultsSixty-seven of 80 physicians stated they gained knowledge relevant to their practice. Sixty-three gave concrete examples of how this affected their practice, including direct changes to patient care (e.g., improved diagnosis or prescribing and reduced unnecessary testing) or less direct changes (e.g., improved ability to co-manage with other providers or communicate with patients). Physicians also described sharing what they learned with others, including peers and trainees. LIMITATIONS: Interviews could have been affected by recall and/or social desirability bias, as well as researchers' role as board staff. Although we followed a recruitment protocol designed to mitigate recruitment acceptance bias, our findings may not be generalizable to wider groups of physicians.
conclusionsMost physicians from two primary care specialties interviewed reported ways in which studying for an MOC exam resulted in acquiring knowledge that was both relevant and beneficial to their patient care.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.