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Gastroenterology Board Meeting Summary | Spring 2025

June 30, 2025  |  Posted by ABIM  |  Specialty Board Meeting Summaries

Kenneth R. DeVault, MD, Chair, ABIM Gastroenterology Board

The Gastroenterology Board, which meets twice a year and is responsible for oversight of ABIM policy and assessment in the specialty, held its spring meeting on April 30, 2025. Representatives from the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (AASLD), the American College of Gastroenterology (ACG), the American Gastroenterological Association (AGA) and the American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy (ASGE) joined for a portion of the meeting*.

The following is a summary of the spring meeting. Visit the ABIM Blog for reports of prior meetings. To share your feedback with the Gastroenterology Board on this report or other issues that are important to you, please complete this brief survey.

ABIM and the Gastroenterology Board grateful acknowledge the service of Hannah M. Herrington, MPH, CPH, CHES, and Richard K. Sterling, MD, whose terms on the Specialty Board end June 30, 2025.

Join the ABIM Gastroenterology Board

The Gastroenterology Board is seeking physicians to join for an initial three-year term starting July 1, 2026:

International medical graduates are encouraged to apply, but all applicants are welcome and will be considered. Applications are due July 20, 2025.

Contents:

ABIM Leadership Update*

Furman S. McDonald, MD, MPH, President and Chief Executive Officer of ABIM and the ABIM Foundation, joined the Specialty Board to share progress on key initiatives and ongoing areas of focus for ABIM, including:

  • Exploring the alignment of Maintenance of Certification (MOC) requirement due dates with the Longitudinal Knowledge Assessment (LKA®) cycle to help make the MOC program more reliably predictable.
  • Enhancements made to the LKA in response to feedback from physicians who identified areas for improvement, which are intended to keep the program relevant and effective.
  • Expanding ABIM’s engagement with stakeholder communities such as early career physicians, specialty societies and patient-focused organizations.
  • Upgrades to the ABIM website and Physician Portal for 2025 designed to make it easier for both physicians and the public to find information.

The Specialty Board discussed the LKA in greater detail, as well as the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in assessment development and the integration of public members in ABIM Governance. While some expressed approval for the recent enhancements to the LKA, others inquired whether ABIM would consider instituting a break or “year off” between five-year cycles and questioned how ABIM ensures the relevance of assessment questions to highly specialized clinical practice. Dr. McDonald pointed out that internal ABIM studies have suggested that medical knowledge starts becoming outdated after about five years, which was part of the decision behind the LKA’s five-year cycle. He also explained how the Diplomate Professional Profile and focused assessments (see below) are intended to inform more tailored versions of the LKA for subspecialists.

Finally, Dr. McDonald confirmed that ABIM remains committed to integrating public members (including patients, caregivers and other credentialed healthcare providers) in its governance, and has prioritized deeper engagement with that population to promote the value and relevance of board certification to more than physicians.

Specialty Board Oversight of Assessment*

Each spring, the ABIM Specialty Boards review data related to certification and assessment trends in their disciplines to help guide their decisions on assessments. At this meeting, the Gastroenterology Board received statistics on the current state of active certification in oncology, assessment enrollment, demographics and pass rates, and data from post-assessment surveys. (Some data, such as exam pass rates and resident and fellow workforce trends, are publicly available on ABIM’s website.) Of note, 22,320 physicians have been ABIM Board Certified in Gastroenterology since it was first offered in 1941, and 17,497 are maintaining a valid certification. More than half—10,072 (58%)—are simultaneously maintaining certification in internal medicine.

Additionally, 1,071 physicians have been board certified in transplant hepatology since 2006 with 904 maintaining today. Of those, 867 (83%) are maintaining board certification in gastroenterology and 556 (62%) in internal medicine.

Physicians who were due for an assessment in gastroenterology and enrolled in one in 2024 chose the LKA at a rate of 77% over the traditional, 10-year MOC exam, a rate on par with other specialties. (The LKA is not available in transplant hepatology.)

Members of the Specialty Board discussed a few questions about the data and the LKA. One pointed out the relative disparity between female and male physicians taking initial certification versus MOC assessments. Staff confirmed that similar trends have been identified in some other specialties, likely attributable to more women entering the specialty in recent years so initial certification numbers are higher than registration for the traditional MOC exam where they initially certified in gastroenterology at least 10 years ago or more

Initial Certification and Training Data in Gastroenterology*

The Gastroenterology Board also reviewed new data from the National Resident Matching Program (NRMP), Board Eligibility data, outcomes for candidates requiring retraining, faculty pathway pass rates and approved Advancing Innovation in Residency Education (AIRE) programs in gastroenterology. There was some discussion about how many physicians match into a fellowship on the second attempt, but the data were not available at the time of the meeting. Dr. DeVault noted that the data in the presentation would be valuable for advising applicants.

Diplomate Professional Profile*

The Diplomate Professional Profile is a questionnaire built into the ABIM Physician Portal and required of all ABIM Board Certified physicians every five years. The questionnaire gathers information about clinical work and practice patterns, and ABIM uses the information to help update exam blueprints, develop policies for initial certification and MOC, and ensure adequately diverse representation of the profession in research. To date, 44% of physicians have completed the Diplomate Professional Profile. Siddharta G. Reddy, MPH, Senior Research Associate for ABIM, reviewed aggregate data gathered so far related to gastroenterologists, including practice setting, practice size and physician ownership of practices. Preliminary data gathered to date indicate that 92% of gastroenterologists are clinically active, with nearly half (46.7%) in private practice, 25.1% in hospital- or system-owned practice and 23% in academic faculty practice. Dr. DeVault also noted how some practices are large, covering entire states, and pointed out the relatively higher proportion of practices linked to private equity (10%) compared to other specialties (1 – 3%).

Community Practice in ABIM Governance*

Erica N. Johnson, MD, FACP, FIDSA, Senior Vice President for Academic and Medical Affairs, led a discussion with the Gastroenterology Board on community practice in the specialty to create a more inclusive understanding of its role and scope. She also sought input on overlapping aspects of community practice across the disciplines of internal medicine to inform ABIM’s recruitment efforts for broad physician representation in governance roles.

Since 2013, ABIM Specialty Boards have been required to include at least one physician member primarily engaged in community practice, defined broadly in applications as “clinical practice in a non-university, community setting.” A workgroup convened in 2020 found that the existing practice categories candidates could choose were inadequate to the real scope of community practice and proposed updates drawn from the American Medical Association and the Diplomate Professional Profile.

In discussion, the group highlighted the complexity and evolving nature of practice settings in gastroenterology. Traditional concepts of private practice and academic practice are no longer the benchmark, nor as clearly defined as they used to be. Dr. DeVault noted that venture capitalist groups own a significant proportion of gastroenterology and multi-specialty practices. He and others suggested that fewer, broader categories would be more meaningful in determining what backgrounds and perspectives to bring onto the Specialty Board in future.

Blueprint Review Tool

Ginneh Flamer, Ph.D., MBA, Exam Developer for ABIM, demonstrated the Blueprint Review Tool that ABIM is using for a current job analysis of the field which will eventually update the Gastroenterology and Transplant Hepatology Blueprints. The Blueprint Review Tool is both an internal application for ABIM staff, and a platform for physicians to rate each section of the existing blueprint and provide comments on what, if anything, should be changed to reflect current realities of practice in the specialty, particularly how much of their clinical time is spent on a given topic area and how important the specific area is to practice. Physicians certified in the specialty receive an email invitation to participate in one or more sections of the blueprint. The tool also includes the capability to pause, save and come back later when time is limited.

ABIM invited gastroenterologists to take part in the blueprint review until June 25 via email. More information about proposed changes to the blueprint will be available later this year.

Focused Assessments in Gastroenterology

Last year, the Gastroenterology Board approved plans for ABIM to develop a version of the Gastroenterology LKA focused on hepatology, slated to launch in July 2026. As part of the development process, staff asked the Specialty Board to consider and approve the official name of the assessment with input from the specialty societies present. After discussion, the Specialty Board voted to approve “Gastroenterology: Hepatology LKA” as the name of the focused assessment.

Innovations in Assessment*

ABIM’s Research and Innovations Department has been leading a program of research on improving assessments through three main areas: supporting the efficiency of assessment staff, facilitating the item development process and enhancing the assessment experience for physicians. The Gastroenterology Board received an overview of the team’s current projects. The group briefly discussed how AI might improve review and approval processes for the Approval Committees by helping members update questions and references more efficiently. Currently, ABIM is developing a tool called AI-Dynamic Assessment Response Transformation (AI-DART) to aid physician Item-Writers in choosing distractors and creating rationales and references, but all relevant medical expertise is still provided by the Item-Writers.

Annual Diplomate Report*

ABIM is looking into the potential for publishing annual reports of data that will highlight broad statistics across each discipline of internal medicine, both for a given year and historic trends over time. This would include the current number of physicians certified in each discipline and its geographic distribution, participation rates in MOC, demographic characteristics and assessment performance. While some of these data have been made available on request for research purposes, ABIM has never published a consolidated annual report. Based on questions from the group, staff clarified that the report is intended to be housed on the ABIM website and would not contain any identifiable data, including individual physicians’ pass/fail rates. Some members offered suggestions like including interactive tools to view the data in different ways and more age-related information.

Society representatives departed at this point in the meeting.

Supporting Research and Important Issues in Gastroenterology

Dr. Johnson led the Gastroenterology Board in a discussion about opportunities for ABIM Governance members to support important issues and research that demonstrates the value of board certification. Dr. Johnson asked the Specialty Board to identify current or emerging issues that affect health care in gastroenterology, and to consider opportunities for the Specialty Board to address these issues within the appropriate framework of its oversight of the discipline.

Rocio Castrillon, a patient member on the Gastroenterology Board, National Trustee with the Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation and patient advocate, shared news about federal funding cuts affecting inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) research. Additionally, scientists are leaving the United States, resulting in the loss of research advancements, with ripple effects on patients who will be directly affected by scientific delays and/or research breakthroughs.

Dr. DeVault mentioned how some specialty societies have 501(c)3 status or split status, and Dr. Johnson pointed out the distinctions between the missions of medical societies and certifying boards, and how their missions informed their tax status. She also described the ABMS International Physician Task Force and how the Member Boards are represented on that to address broad concerns with additional licensure models arising in some states, such as the limited options for many physicians licensed under those models to become Board Eligible and ensuring adequate monitoring and assessment of the models over time.

Updates from the Gastroenterology Approval Committees

The Specialty Board received an update on recent meetings and activities of the Approval Committees from Amar R. Deshpande, MD, Chair of the Gastroenterology Traditional, 10-Year MOC Exam Approval Committee, Charlene Prather, MD, PhD, Chair of the Gastroenterology LKA Approval Committee, and Marwan S. Ghabril, MD, Chair of the Transplant Hepatology Approval Committee. The chairs reviewed their committees’ goals for providing feedback on and approving assessment questions in development and reviewed upcoming stages in the blueprint review process.

The Transplant Hepatology Approval Committee is preparing for the release of the unified Transplant Hepatology Certification exam in 2026. In partnership with the American Board of Pediatrics, ABIM is working toward creating a more unified assessment that reflects the needs of both adult and pediatric transplant hepatologists. The assessment will continue to focus on questions that are appropriate for adult transplant hepatology, but test takers will see some questions that are applicable to both the adult and pediatric population. These changes will have a minimal impact on internists who are certified in transplant hepatology.

The chairs also mentioned the need for more physicians on the Approval Committees and Item-Writing Task Forces to help write and approve content for the new focused assessment.

Visit ABIM’s website for a full list of current openings.
Approval Committee openings are usually posted in the fall.

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*Indicates that society representatives and other guests were present for discussion of this agenda topic.

ABIM governance, gastroenterology, Gastroenterology Board, Gastroenterology Board Summary, Kenneth DeVault, Summary Report

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