The European Board of Internal Medicine Report 2020
The Board planned to meet in Utrecht in March but this was postponed due to the current COVID-19 pandemic. Instead we have resorted to Zoom and have had several meetings to further our activities online rather than face to face.
The main focus of our efforts has been to complete the revision of the Accreditation of Training Centres and the Certification in Internal Medicine documents. These have both reached the stage of where they are ready to be implemented. In order to progress further, then both of these documents would need to be launched using an appropriate web-based package with support, security and maintenance. The cost and processes of approving each application is being worked through at the current time.
The development of a knowledge-based examination is another goal of the board. A European diploma examination in Internal Medicine will require a significant amount of organisation. We have liaised with the European Paediatric section on how they developed their exam and with CESMA. We plan to explore the idea of creating an Exam Board and Question Writing groups along with the governance required to run an exam of this nature.
The Terms of Reference of the Board have also been reviewed and been approved by the UEMS Section of Internal Medicine. Next, it will be discussed within the EFIM Executive Committee as to the make-up of the board and how the selection of members and elections of the key posts are organised.
The Board has developed a questionnaire on the state of training for Internal Medicine. It remains open and to date it has had over 200 responses. An update on the outcome of this questionnaire will be made and the results available later this year.
There is also a plan to consider a survey on the effects of the pandemic on postgraduate training.
We will continue meeting online, but it is hoped that once the pandemic situation allows then a further meeting in Utrecht will take place.