The American Board of Radiology is responding to recent concerns from female physicians about the challenges of planning pregnancies and nursing around rigid test scheduling.
In a statement issued Tuesday, the Tucson, Arizona-based doc-certification group said it hopes future plans to offer online test-taking will begin to allay some of these challenges. The comments come in response to an editorial penned by American Association for Women in Radiology leaders, published Saturday in Clinical Imaging.
“Our new remote exam delivery process will provide greater convenience and privacy for nursing mothers and all other candidates,” ABR Executive Director Brent Wagner, MD, said in a statement provided to Radiology Business. “Remote exams also will eliminate the need to travel, making the process safer during and after the pandemic.”
As ABR begins to plot its new model of doing business, set to start in 2021, the board will “actively” seek input from stakeholders and focus on similar concerns in its analyses, Wagner added. In recent weeks, physicians have shared stories on social media of having to pump milk in bathroom stalls on test-taking sites, while in the presence of a chaperone. ABR currently provides an additional 30 minutes of breaks for nursing mothers, but physicians are requesting additional time and more choices in scheduling exam dates.
“The ABR has long provided nursing mothers with additional break time to what all candidates receive. As we work through the details of our new exam delivery method, we remain committed to fully supporting nursing mothers in the radiology community,” Wagner concluded his statement.
Marty Stempniak has covered healthcare since 2012, with his byline appearing in the American Hospital Association's member magazine, Modern Healthcare and McKnight's. Prior to that, he wrote about village government and local business for his hometown newspaper in Oak Park, Illinois. He won a Peter Lisagor and Gold EXCEL awards in 2017 for his coverage of the opioid epidemic.