Physicians are urging the American Board of Radiology to provide greater flexibility to those who are pregnant or breastfeeding when scheduling and taking the group’s certification exams.
The seven radiologists made their plea in an editorial published Saturday in Clinical Imaging, noting the many challenges women face when starting a family and their medical career in tandem. In particular, they want the Arizona-based doc certification group to offer extra break time for mothers to pump during their test-taking and additional dates on which to schedule exams.
ABR recently responded to requests from the field to allow web-based test administration during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the writers want the nonprofit to take things a step further.
“We urge the ABR to extend its lactation break policy in parallel with the transition to a virtual testing environment, as part of its forward-thinking embrace of change,” wrote corresponding author Lucy Spalluto, MD, MPH, president of the American Association of Women in Radiology, and colleagues including the journal’s editor-in-chief. “This policy change has the potential to mitigate unnecessary burdens on examinees while maintaining the high threshold to ensure clinical competency within our fields.”
Currently, the ABR Core examination takes 7.5 hours, with a 30-minute break for all examinees and an additional half hour allotted for lactating mothers. That’s in contrast to lengthier time granted to docs in other specialties. In surgery, for instance, all physicians taking the general qualifying exam receive a 70-minute break and breastfeeding mothers an additional hour on top of that, Spallutto and colleagues noted.
In recent weeks, physicians such as Tatiana Prowell, MD, have shared stories on Twitter of being forced to pump milk in bathroom stalls on their break while in the presence of a board chaperone.
“Dear @ABR_Radiology, women are now [greater than] half of med school grads. Childbearing [years] & board exams will coincide. We are done being the ones who always have to adapt,” Prowell, a breast oncologist with Johns Hopkins, tweeted last month to her nearly 22,000 followers.
Spalluto and colleagues further noted that virtual exams will help prevent the “significant financial burden” incurred by travel. However, the current process will continue to “ostracize” women who are 32 weeks or more pregnant, along with those who must arrange for childcare during their absence. Typically, ABR exams require about three months of preparation, with docs planning pregnancies and other major life events around a limited schedule.
“We hope the ABR's openness to embrace virtual examination will further drive the development of a fair and equitable examination process, including the consideration of multiple testing dates throughout the year to accommodate family planning or other major life events,” added the editorialists, who also include the AAWR’s immediate past-president and current president elect.
The American Board of Radiology did not immediately respond to email requests for comment on Monday.
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.