PubMed1996
OBJECTIVES AND METHODS: The main objectives of the research was to identify the merits and demerits of the specialty board certification system, that had been implemented in the other medical societies than the society of psychiatry in Japan. As a measure of the research, we conducted a survey by distributing questionnaires to medical institutions. The subjects of this survey included medical practitioners, other than the psychiatrists, who belong to general hospital, university hospital and the Japan Medical Association. FINDINGS: We received 228 responses out of the subjects. The findings were that 86% of the subjects have acquired the specialty board certificate, and that half of them have more than two kinds of qualifications on the average. Thus, the report suggests that the specialty board certification system have been long pervaded throughout the medical fields outside psychiatry. In addition, the subjects pointed out as the merits of the specialty board certification system that it helps to achieve the higher level of technique, and to organize and sophisticate as well as widen the knowledge of their specialty. They also reported that it contributes to instigate the life-long education and to earn identification and recognition of their specialty from other fields of medicine than their own. Fifty-three percent of the subjects acknowledged the necessity of the specialty board certification system while 13% regarded it unnecessary. This result proves that, despite higher percentage of the doctors with qualifications, the system itself is not approved of with full acknowledgement in the medical world. This rather negative attitudes toward the system is originated in the fact that acquiring and maintaining the certificate, i.e., renewal fees, are considerably high. In fact, as many as 62% of the subjects felt these points as disadvantages of the system. The medical practitioners outside the fields of psychiatry did not show any particular concern about the lack of the specialty board certification system in our field that is distinct as a field of medicine. Only 18% of the subjects expressed that urgent actualization of the system is desirable in our fields. In addition, securing the cites required for learning the technique and giving the exam to the applicants is the most important matter to be concerned. On the contrary, in other fields of medicine, the matter does not need to be discussed. Therefore, this is a problem unique to the fields of psychiatry. CONCLUSION: Although there are disadvantage of the specialty board certification system pointed out as shown above, we believe that it is necessary to introduce the system in the field of psychiatry. These disadvantage are mainly the matter of individual income. We need to consider the introduction of the system from the perspective of sophisticating the quality of psychiatry as a field of medicine in our country. We, the Subcommittee on feasibility of implementing specialty board certification in the Japanese Society of Psychiatry and Neurology have been contemplating over the system up to this moment. The progress has been made to the point of presenting, Discussion of the Specialty Board Certification System in Psychiatry, Yamauchi, May, 1994.