Victor Lerch: Patients ultimately pay for physician certifications

Regarding the July 15 Point of View “Angry physicians lose faith in board”: I couldn’t agree more with Dr. Ghulam Shaikh.

The medical specialty boards are a classic example of a bureaucracy run amok in an orgy of self-perpetuation. That they are able to do so is a function of the monopoly status granted them by hospitals and insurance companies ever fearful of the plaintiff’s bar.

This despite no credible evidence that board certification itself (let alone the conjured-out-of-thin-air maintenance of certification regime) correlates in any measurable way with clinical competence.

Ultimately, of course, it is consumers who pay for such blatant profit-seeking.

This story was originally published July 20, 2016 at 5:14 PM with the headline "Victor Lerch: Patients ultimately pay for physician certifications."