Eligibility for the American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM) Board Certification Examination:
Extended leaves of absence beyond vacation time may result in requiring a resident to wait until the following year to sit for the Board Certification examination.
From the ABIM Website:
“To be admitted to the ABIM Internal Medicine Certification Examination, physicians must have satisfactorily completed, by August 31 of the year of examination, 36 calendar months, including vacation time, of U.S. or Canadian graduate medical education accredited by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME), the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada or the Collège des médecins du Québec. Residency or research experience occurring before completion of the requirements for the MD or DO degree cannot be credited toward the requirements for certification. The 36 months of residency training must include 12 months of accredited internal medicine training at each of three levels: R-1, R-2 and R-3. No credit is granted for training repeated at the same level or for administrative work as a chief medical resident. In addition, training as a subspecialty fellow cannot be credited toward fulfilling the internal medicine training requirements.”
Capital Health Internal Medicine Residents will be informed verbally and in writing of the effect any leave will have on completion of training and ability take the certifying exam.