A new organization is moving forward with plans to provide accreditation and certification services for neurology subspecialties.
The United Council for Neurologic Subspecialties (UCNS) is currently working on accreditation and certification standards in the area of behavioral neurology and neuropsychiatry. Accreditation standards for behavioral neurology and neuropsychiatry are expected to be available early this year and certification standards are expected to be available in 2006, CLINICAL NEUROLOGY NEWS has learned in interviews with neurologists involved in the process.
In addition, the group is reviewing applications from five other neurology subspecialties that are seeking to pursue accreditation and certification through UCNS. Officials at UCNS are keeping the names of the subspecialties that have applied for membership confidential until the process is complete.
A number of neurology groups launched UCNS in 2003 to provide accreditation and certification of neurology subspecialties that are at an early stage in their development process. UCNS was established by the American Academy of Neurology, the American Neurological Association, the Association of University Professors of Neurology, the Child Neurology Society, and the Professors of Child Neurology.
The new body provides an alternative pathway for subspecialties that are established enough for accreditation and certification but are not large enough to go through the traditional routes—accreditation through the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) and certification through the American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS).
For example, the vascular neurology subspecialty recently succeeded in getting a certification exam for its subspecialists through ABMS; however, the subspecialty of behavioral neurology and neuropsychiatry is much smaller and requires more developmental support to navigate the process.
The ACGME and ABMS criteria have been used as models for the UCNS requirements.
“We felt we needed to offer this,” said Stephen Sergay, M.D., chair of UCNS and a clinical neurologist in Tampa, Fla.
For over 10 years, subspecialties have been a major part of neurology, but there hasn't been recognition of the extra time and training that neurologists have invested in their subspecialty area, Dr. Sergay said.
Accreditation and certification for these subspecialties will help to ensure high-quality patient care, he said.
The activities of UCNS will increase the cohesiveness of the approach to training for various subspecialties, Dr. Sergay said. Currently, there may be five training programs in a given subspecialty, and they will all be slightly different. Now, the sponsoring organizations for a new subspecialty will have to come to a consensus on a core curriculum and training requirements before they apply for membership in UCNS.
That made the subspecialty of behavioral neurology and neuropsychiatry a good fit for UCNS since so much work had already been done on establishing a core curriculum in the field, said David L. Bachman, M.D., president of the Society for Behavioral and Cognitive Neurology, one of the groups that sponsored the subspecialty for membership with UCNS. Dr. Bachman chairs the behavioral neurology section for the American Academy of Neurology and is director of the division of adult neurology at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston.
UCNS recently finished a draft of the application form that will be used to accredit training programs in behavioral neurology and neuropsychiatry. The application form was developed according to the training requirements provided by the subspecialty. Currently, nine training programs have agreed to pilot the form. These programs will review the form and provide comments to UCNS.
“We want the programs to feel comfortable that these are reasonable criteria that people can live with,” said Dr. Bachman, who now sits on the UCNS board of directors as a representative of his specialty.
It's likely that the training programs will be able to begin applying early this year and UCNS plans to begin accrediting programs in the fall, said Mari Mellick, UCNS manager, in St. Paul.
Certification for physicians will run on a parallel track to accreditation, Dr. Bachman said.
There are a number of people who have already been trained in behavioral neurology and neuropsychiatry. As a result, leaders from the subspecialty and officials at UCNS are also working to develop grandfathering criteria for those physicians who have already been training in this field.
UCNS has also formed an examination committee for behavioral neurology and neuropsychiatry with experts from the subspecialty who will develop the certification exam.
The committee's first meeting is scheduled for early this year with the goal of offering the certification exam in 2006, Ms. Mellick said.