Q&A: New ABIM president outlines priorities

Key takeaways:

• The American Board of Internal Medicine selected its new leader, whose tenure begins this fall.
• He told Healio about his priorities for the organization, including listening to the physicians it serves.

The American Board of Internal Medicine has unanimously chosen Furman S. McDonald, MD, MPH, as its next leader.

McDonald, who will begin his tenure Sept. 1, was selected as the incoming president and CEO of the American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM) after a 6-month long national search, according to a press release.

In a blog post, McDonald discussed how his upbringing in rural communities and the “level playing field” that standardized tests offered throughout his education helped spur his success in medicine.

Healio spoke with McDonald to learn more about his priorities for the organization, his thoughts on some of the field’s top concerns and more.

Healio: What are your priorities for ABIM? What do you think the organization should be focused on right now?

McDonald: The focus is really the mission. ABIM’s mission is to certify internists and sub-specialists who demonstrate the knowledge, skills and attitudes necessary for excellent patient care. And I've always held that the most important word in that statement is not “certified,” but “demonstrate.” So, we are going to advance the mission to recognize physician expertise in ways that are connected to patient outcomes and follow the data. That’s my priority — and the board’s priority — as we move forward.

Healio: Aside from taking on this new role, what are some of your career highlights?

McDonald: My career highlights are broken up into academic pursuits and then graduate medical education. I did early training in physics at the University of North Carolina and then transitioned into medicine, which was a wonderful journey. The highlights are the Mayo Clinic, where I went to med school and did residency and chief residency, and Johns Hopkins Hospital, where I was an intern for Osler Medical Service.

From there, it was really into a world of clinical practice and graduate medical education. I had the privilege of being the program director at the Mayo Clinic, getting to work with great organizations like the Association of Program Directors in Internal Medicine (APDIM) and lead their survey committee work with the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education and the Educational Innovations Project, where we really were looking for evidence that what we were doing in medical education was associated with patient outcomes. I got to be a part of their review committee for internal medicine and focus on program accreditation. Then along came ABIM about a decade ago, and it’s been a wonderful time there as well, getting to focus on these areas that are so important to me.

Healio: Where do you see the future of ABIM going? What are some of your goals in this position?

McDonald: I believe ABIM will continue to be a vehicle by which the profession sets standards for itself. To do that, ABIM has to listen to the profession.

I mentioned the mission statement; we also have another saying that we are “of the profession and for the public,” so ABIM will be moving forward in coordination with physicians and patients together to recognize physician expertise, wherein it is associated with better patient outcomes. We have a large and growing body of evidence that patients whose doctors demonstrate more medical knowledge have a better prognosis on a host of outcomes. That’s good for patients and doctors, and is where I think ABIM will go.

Healio: What are your thoughts on some of the hot topics in medicine right now, like physician burnout and AI in health care?

McDonald: Burnout is real. I had the pleasure of working at the Mayo Clinic for many years for some of the leaders in burnout research. Colin West, MD, PhD, was an associate program director with me in residency at Mayo, so I have some knowledge of that literature and actually got to study burnout in the program director population with the APDIM survey committee. Burnout is related to not just how much work people are doing; it’s how much control, autonomy and the ability to influence they have. That’s where ABIM has a role to play insofar as we’re providing options and choices for doctors to demonstrate their expertise.

AI is a really exciting part of the role of emerging technologies. The ABIM board had a strategic conversation that culminated prior to the release of ChatGPT, but they were quite prescient. They indicated that part of the focus of the board should be on emerging technologies and how they may affect physician practice, patient care and physician assessment. So, there’s a lot of real opportunity there as we look into the future.

Healio: Is there anything else you would like to add?

McDonald: I really would like to emphasize the importance of recognizing physician expertise because of this issue that patients whose doctors can demonstrate more medical knowledge have a better prognosis on a host of outcomes. We've been studying that for some time. It’s been a focus of my scholarly career for over 25 years. There’s a lot of work to do with the profession around identifying how we can help promote physician expertise and listen to them so that we know that what we’re doing is “of the profession” even while it is “for the public.” If ABIM is to truly be a vehicle by which the profession sets standards for itself, the first key to that is listening to the professionals.

References:

• From rural America to Philadelphia, and everywhere in between: Meet Furman S. McDonald, MD, MPH: ABIM’s incoming president and CEO. https://blog.abim.org/meet-furman-s-mcdonald-md-mph-abims-incoming-president-and-ceo/. Published June 4, 2024. Accessed July 10, 2024.
• Furman S. McDonald, MD, MPH, named ABIM president and CEO. https://www.abim.org/media-center/press-releases/furman-s-mcdonald-md-mph-named-abim-president-and-ceo. Accessed July 10, 2024.