My insurance co. has a website listing the doctors and includes in their bio if they are board certified in their field of specialty in addition to which hospitals they can use. IIRC it also lists if they've taken the classes but never took the exam...

Story.

A friend went to their doctor and got antibiotics for a UTI — Urinary Tract Infection.

The friend went out of state on vacation, but still had symptoms when they returned. The doctor did not have an opening to see my friend for several days, but told them they could go to a general walk-in clinic. The doctor would not prescribe anything over the phone, even though my friend had his wife drop off a urine sample that tested positive for infection.

I looked up the friend’s doctor and it appears the doctor is not board certified in internal medicine or family medicine. The doctor’s profile information on Healthgrades.com or other sites gives no information on whether the doctor is board certified. It says that the doctor’s medical education is from a college of osteopathy.

I was not impressed by this.

I looked up some of my doctors on Healthgrades.com and found their profiles stated they were board certified in Internal Medicine. At least one doctor was board certified for two specialities.

I communicated that to my friend who decided to find another doctor. I am conerned since they have had this infection for over two (2) weeks and it is not responding to the prescribed antibiotics. This friend also has one or two comorbidities (DM II) and is not medically versed. There is a large medical center/teaching hospital that a lot of practitioners in their area are connected to, but except for their Cardiology Department, I personally, have given it three tries and found it wanting.

I hope my friend will find a competent if not super duper doctor. I have not heard back and have already emailed info. I don’t want to bug them.

PD Thanks Annie D.!

Two different topics to comment on. I'll do two posts.

First - training after medical school graduation.

To get a state medical license requires, I believe, at least one year of additional training. These have historically been referred to as the "internship year". Very few docs these days do only that but those who do are called something like "general physicians".

I think nearly 100% of grads continue on to do what's call "residency training". I think the minimum length is 3 years (which includes a first year roughly equal to an internship) and then additional years depending on the field of medicine pursued and the degree and layers of specialization. The primary care areas - internal med, family med as well as others like emergency, OB/GYN, etc are 3 years. Other residency areas take longer - just as a hypothetical, orthopedic surgery may be 5 or 6 years or more. A further focus into a particular joint or area like foot and ankle or sports medicine may be an added fellowship year or more after that.

For specialties that require "fellowships", further training after a residency, further board exams are given. To be board certified happens by passing a specific exam at the end of a residency or fellowship. The exam pass rates vary, mid-70%s for some, up to mid 90%s for others. No added classes are required, just completion of the residency or fellowship.

Many sub specialties are subsets of internal medicine. Cardiology, pulmonology, gastroenterology, and a number of others are examples. So to become a cardiologist, a 3 year residency in internal medicine is done first, and then successful application for admission to a cardiology fellowship for an addition 3 years. Such a doc likely takes the internal med board at the end of the residency period, and then again would take the cardiology board at the end of the fellowship. Thus, docs in subspecialties of internal medicine, as an example, are often double boarded because that's the path they've followed to their area of practice.

A physician who has successfully completed a residency in internal medicine can call themself a "specialist in internal medicine". Or if cardiology training is completed, they're a "cardiologist". But not "boarded" if the applicable test wasn't taken or was taken and failed.

Try this free ABMS Certification Matters doctor search: https://www.certificationmatters.org/find-my-doctor/

Another option is to check your state medical board.

Does it matter if a doctor is boarded?

Yes and no. While in training, they're still students learning more for their specialty. Should a student be able to pass a final exam (which is essentially what a board exam is)? If they did the training but didn't pass, does that mean they learned less than others who did pass? Maybe. Are docs who pass and earn the "boarded" designation better docs? Maybe, but probably not all. But they have demonstrated better mastery of the material they were supposed to learn.

I've been told board exams are tough - not just in medicine but in other "health" fields too. For specialty dentists, for specialty vets, etc. Some have lower passage rates. Does passage mean something? It does to me. I want to see docs who excelled in their education and training as a start, I'll assess how I like them after that.

Remember the US medical profession has two tiers - "allopathic" schools grant MD degrees and osteopathic school grant DO degrees. Osteopathic schools tend to have students with lower achieving undergrad and exam records, many of whom were unsuccessful in gaining admission to the more difficult allopathic schools. Does that matter? It matters to me, for the same reason as in the preceding paragraph.

There are lousy docs who went to great MD schools, and excellent docs who went to osteopathic schools. I'd rather go with the odds, past performance can be a strong indicator of future achievement.

MD and DO residency organizations are separate and grant accreditation to programs separately. All MD schools offer residencies, DO schools don't in the same way (because few or none operate their own hospitals). DO residencies tend to be at hospitals that choose to affiliate with such programs. Why, or what leads to that, I don't know.

DO school grads can apply to allopathic residencies by taking the allopathic exams that MD students take. (Note - graduates of foreign medical schools can also apply to US allopathic residencies. If they do well on their USMLE exams, they can complete US residencies and get US medical licenses. And then green card status, I believe, if not US citizens.)

A fair number (DO grads)do complete allopathic (as opposed to osteopathic) residencies. Many allopathic programs do not, as a matter of policy, accept applications from DO grads.

Does that matter? I think there's a pretty obvious message in that, that the program directors, whose jobs it is to choose capable entrants to their programs to educate the docs of the future, do not see the DO path as comparable.

" Another option is to check your state medical board. "

I'm not sure state medical boards have any involvement with this. Don't be distracted by the letters "b o a r d" in both words. The bestowing of the distinction "Boarded specialist" is done nationally by the governing organizations who determine and administer the test for the applicable specialty.

A state medical license is usually just that, with no distinction for area of practice. A doc's state record may or may not mention areas of post-doc training but that has nothing to do with their medical licensing. The state boards are not involved in conveying or determining such status. It's something the doc would report on their application on the same basis as reporting their address.