American College of Physicians Announces New Strategic Priority, Expands Commitment to Physician Learning and Professional Accountability

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May 07, 2024, 16:15 ET

PHILADELPHIA, May 7, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The American College of Physicians (ACP) announced a new, three-year strategic priority expanding its commitment to, and support of, physicians in their engagement with continuous learning and professional accountability. ACP has long recognized the medical profession's responsibility to ensure quality medical care and has supported physicians in their lifelong learning and demonstration of ongoing accountability. The recently updated ACP Professional Accountability Principles endorse longitudinal formative assessment, support holistic credentialing for patient care, and outline important attributes and standards for any organization that is involved in assuring physician accountability.

The new strategic priority builds on ACP's 55-year history of leadership in physician continuing learning, assessment, and feedback. These priorities also help to facilitate innovative approaches for physicians to demonstrate their continuance of knowledge, document learning, and provide evidence of engagement with high-quality education. Since 1967, ACP's Medical Knowledge and Self-Assessment Program (MKSAP) has offered the gold standard in continuing medical education for internal medicine physicians. Recently, ACP has been piloting a new MKSAP feature, CORE (Confirmation of Relevant Education), which allows physician learners to enter a more rigorous assessment component including a standardized passing threshold. If they are successful, CORE participants receive a badge confirming their achievement and can earn and print a CORE certificate for inclusion in their professional portfolio. ACP has received overwhelmingly positive feedback on CORE's perceived value and relevance to clinical practice during this pilot phase.

In April 2025, following the February 2025 launch of ACP MKSAP, ACP plans to integrate the CORE standardized assessment feature fully into its new ACP MKSAP program. The new CORE feature is one way ACP is responding to requests from internal medicine physicians for new ways to recognize their dedication to continual learning and assessment and their achievements in keeping up with changes in medical knowledge.

"By confirming our commitment to our accountability principles, we recognize that physicians are responsible for maintaining continuing knowledge in the field and accepting feedback from reputable sources as to where their knowledge gaps are and how to close those gaps," said Isaac O. Opole, MBChB, Ph.D., FACP, president, ACP. "Physicians deserve to be recognized for their dedication to continuous self -learning and we feel confident that CORE will help our members and MKSAP users to demonstrate their professional accountability and their maintenance of knowledge in internal medicine."

About the American College of Physicians
The American College of Physicians is the largest medical specialty organization in the United States with members in more than 145 countries worldwide. ACP membership includes 161,000 internal medicine physicians, related subspecialists, and medical students. Internal medicine physicians are specialists who apply scientific knowledge and clinical expertise to the diagnosis, treatment, and compassionate care of adults across the spectrum from health to complex illness. Follow ACP on X, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn.