P********r
发帖数: 92 | 1 What do you think?
(warning: 1.it's super longenthy;2.when you become a doc,you always got to
hold your professionalism first--- even when approached by some nice guy who
just wants a chitchat with you during a break at a conference: he/she could
be with CNN :-)
Here is the link and I also copy pasted the original article below for your convenience:
http://www.cnn.com/2012/01/13/health/prescription-for-cheating/
****************
(CNN) -- For years, doctors around the country taking an exam to become
board certified in radiology have cheated by memorizing test questions,
creating sophisticated banks of what are known as "recalls," a CNN
investigation has found.
The recall exams are meticulously compiled by radiology residents, who write
down the questions after taking the test, in radiology programs around the
country, including some of the most prestigious programs in the U.S.
"It's been going on a long time, I know, but I can't give you a date," said
Dr. Gary Becker, executive director of the American Board of Radiology (ABR)
, which oversees the exam that certifies radiologists.
Asked if this were considered cheating, Becker told CNN, "We would call it
cheating, and our exam security policy would call it cheating, yes."
Radiology residents must sign a document agreeing not to share test material
, but a CNN investigation shows the document is widely ignored. Dozens of
radiology residents interviewed by CNN said that they promised before taking
the written test to memorize certain questions and write them down
immediately after the test along with fellow residents.
We would call it cheating, and our exam security policy would call it
cheating, yes.
Dr. Gary Becker, executive director, American Board of Radiology"Our real
mission is to the public," said Dr. James Borgstede, the ABR's president-
elect. "Our real mission is to say that your certified radiologist has
demonstrated, acquired and maintained the requisite skills and knowledge to
practice with skill and safety on the public."
To become board certified, a virtually essential step to obtain hospital
privileges, residents have been required to pass two written exams and an
intensive oral test during five years of residency training.
The practice of sharing exam answers is so widespread and considered so
serious in the medical community that the ABR has put out a strongly worded
video warning residents that the use of recalls must stop.
"Questions and answers have been memorized, sometimes verbatim, and
contributed to extensive archives of old ABR test material that become the
prize possessions of many residency programs," Becker said in the video,
which appears on the board's website.
He said "accumulating and studying from lists of questions on prior
examinations constitutes unauthorized access, is inappropriate, unnecessary,
intolerable and illegal."
About half of the questions on the radiology test are the same each year.
"The half of the exam that is not new comprises questions from a variety of
previous exams, not from the prior year," Becker told CNN.
"As always, the assembly of the exam is governed by the blueprint created by
the ABR for that particular examination. All questions are reviewed for
currency before being reused."
Read Becker's statement to CNN about ABR exam security (PDF)
Dr. Matthew Webb complained about the recalls to the ABR, which conducted
an investigation.Outside of the world of radiology, it's rare for residents
to speak openly about the recalls. But one doctor at a military program
revealed how the recalls worked to CNN. Dr. Matthew Webb, an Army captain,
trained at the San Antonio Uniformed Services Health Education Consortium (
SAUSHEC), an Army/Air Force program that includes the renowned Brooke Army
Medical Center.
"Cheating is the ultimate betrayal of trust to patients, and it's also the
most egregious and flagrant violation in academia," Webb told CNN. "I got to
where I was based on my own personal achievements, learning and educating
myself. To have to take an exam up against others who have been cheating is
... unfathomable."
The recalls obtained by CNN show at least 15 years' worth of test questions
and answers, some prepared as PowerPoint presentations. The tests were
available on a radiology residents' website as well as a shared military
computer server.
See an example of part of a recall exam (PDF)
Webb complained about the recalls to the ABR, which conducted an
investigation.
"We're outraged by this, and we took this case to our professionalism
committee," Becker said. "The results of the deliberations there and the
decision of the board was to go directly back to the training director, the
dean of the institution, and we've had those discussions."
Webb, 31, said he failed the first radiology written exam, which focuses on
physics, in the fall of 2008. He said the program director at the time, Dr.
Liem Mansfield, told him to use the recalls in order to pass.
"He told me that if you want to pass the ABR physics exam, you absolutely
have to use the recalls," Webb said. "And I told him, 'Sir I believe that is
cheating. I don't believe in that. I can do it on my own.' He then went on
to tell me, 'you have to use the recalls,' almost as if it was a direct
order from a superior officer in the military."
Reached for comment, Mansfield referred CNN to the Brooke Army Medical
Center's public affairs office.
If I don't stand up to the playground bully and fight this, no one else will
.
Dr. Sarah Von MullerIn a statement, the military admitted that some faculty
members and program directors "were aware of the use of recall examination
questions by residents. A smaller number of faculty and a past program
leader encouraged the use of recall questions as one of several tools to
improve medical knowledge and prepare for the exam. Faculty members did not
organize or run the recall question activities."
"All faculty are now aware that SAUSHEC leadership will not tolerate support
or use of recalled questions" in light of the American Board of Radiology's
crackdown, the statement said.
Dr. Woodson Jones, dean of SAUSHEC, also said in a statement to CNN that "
radiology residents' past practice of using recalled examination questions
to study reflected the practice within radiology programs across the country
and did not represent an unfair advantage."
The program had the recalls removed from its computers and required
residents to sign a document that they would not use them.
"Our residents were concerned we were now putting them at a disadvantage
compared to the remainder of the country," Jones told CNN in a phone
interview. "Our perspective on this is it doesn't matter. We are going to
exhibit the highest level of professionalism."
Jones said that "by looking at what has happened, we took very aggressive
action to ensure that we lived up to the policy released by the (American
Board of Radiology) as far as the new culture they were trying to generate
across the country by having all of our residents sign attestation
statements they would not use recalled exam questions, and they would
destroy any exam questions they were aware of."
Graduates of the SAUCHEC program contacted by CNN would not discuss the
recalls.
Webb said he doubted anything would have been done if he had not complained
to the ABR and the military about the recalls.
I don't believe it would be fair to accuse our trainees of cheating on that
basis.
Dr. Anne Silas, Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center"This is not a gray area.
This is absolute, definitive cheating. If we were in middle school, high
school, college or anywhere else in academia, they would call it cheating,"
Webb said.
Jones, in his statement to CNN, said, "No adverse action has been taken
against a radiology resident for revealing the use of the recalled questions
. However, a resident was terminated from training by SAUSHEC in June 2011
for failure to meet professionalism standards after extensive due process
procedures were followed. These termination procedures took place prior to
our learning of complaints by a resident regarding the use of recalled
examination questions by radiology residents."
The actions the SAUSHEC program has taken "meet the expectations of the ABR,
" according to a letter sent to Jones from Jennifer Bosma, the ABR's
associate executive director for administration. "Furthermore, they are
fully aligned with the direction given by the ABR's professionalism
committee following review of the whistleblower report. While follow-through
at every level of program leadership will naturally be key to successful
cultural change at SAUSHEC and every residency training program, the ABR is
satisfied that the progress reported to date conforms with the intent of the
new Examination Security Policy."
Meanwhile, Webb has had his own problems with the Army. He was reprimanded
last year for making "sexual comments" to another doctor and for "other
conduct unbecoming an officer." That led to his firing from the radiology
program. Webb said the issue was a personality dispute that escalated.
Webb said his superiors called him into a meeting in December to ask what he
was telling CNN.
In a statement, the military said that Webb "was asked by the hospital
commander if he had recently had any inquiries from and/or dialogue with CNN
, and the commander stated that the soldier wasn't prohibited from
expressing his personal views and responses, but that he needed to alert
command if he had been contacted."
To investigate the use of the recalls, CNN attended the Radiological Society
of North America's annual conference in Chicago, which is the country's
largest medical convention, drawing about 60,000 participants each November.
In interviews over several days, residents and practicing radiologists
confirmed that recalls have been widely used in most, if not all, radiology
programs for more than a decade.
Dr. Gary Becker, executive director of the American Board of Radiology,
says using recall exams for test study is cheating."From my understanding, I
would say nationwide from my friends across the country who are all in the
same stages of training throughout the years, everyone gets a group," said
Dr. John Yoo, a practicing radiologist. "People decided beforehand what
sections I will focus on, in terms of trying to recall those questions and
answers. And then immediately after the examination, the residents get
together and try to put these down onto paper or word processor to be able
to share it with the classes coming behind you."
Asked if he considered it cheating, Yoo said, "I think that is a difficult
question to answer, to be honest, because it is a matter of survival, so to
speak. For better or worse, if you fail to jump over that barrier, you get,
I don't know, like 'The Scarlet Letter,' branded as, 'Hey, this person didn'
t succeed in passing a certain section.' So it is sort of out of necessity
to pass these examinations that you have to rely on the recall."
Yoo said the recalls are used primarily as study guides.
"I can only speak for myself in that I've used these to serve as a guideline
," Yoo said. "These are subjects I need to know cold in order to pass this
examination. I've used them as a guideline. I think many people have used
them as a guideline."
Dr. Joseph Dieber, another radiologist, said he considered the use of the
recalls a "gray area."
"If the questions were somehow reproduced with a camera and it was the exact
question, and you were trying to memorize A, B and C, you know A for this
answer, B for this answer, then yeah, it is cheating. You've got to ask
yourself what the goal of the exam is. If the goal of the exam is to have
you learn the information in that question and to make sure that you're
producing radiologists that are competent to handle the kinds of issues that
come up, then yeah, if people are studying recalls, they learned that
question. They learned everything about it."
Dieber said the recalls are necessary because of the test itself.
U.S. radiologist facts
-- Total number of radiologists: 42,000 to 45,000
-- About 24,000 radiologists with lifetime board certification are "
grandfathered in." They're encouraged -- not required -- to take a board
recertification exam every 10 years.
-- Since May 2002, every diagnostic radiologist must maintain board
certification by participating in continuous professional development known
as Maintenance of Certification and by passing an exam at least every 10
years.
-- Cost of initial board certification exam: $3,000
-- Yearly amount doctors must pay to maintain certification: $300
-- Board-certified radiology residents must pass a physics test and clinical
qualifying written exam and an intensive oral exam that consists of 11
radiology subjects.
-- Beginning in October 2013, a new "core exam" will be administered at two
testing centers in Chicago and in Tucson, Arizona. A certifying exam will be
taken 15 months after completion of diagnostic radiology residency. The
oral exam is being eliminated.
Source: American Board of Radiology
"If they had a test where you could study relevant radiology knowledge and
they tested on it, that would be fine," Dieber said. "Part of the problem is
the test and the questions that they ask. Because some of the questions are
so obscure, that unless you know that they like to ask questions about that
topic, you're not going to study it because some of them are completely
irrelevant to the modern practice of radiology."
Radiology programs around the country are now warning residents that the
recalls cannot be used.
"We have made it clear to the residents in written form that recalls, not
only are they not encouraged, but they are not permitted. As far as we're
concerned, they are not appropriate," said Dr. Carolyn C. Meltzer, who
oversees the radiology and imaging sciences department at Emory University's
School of Medicine, which is one of the largest programs in the U.S.
Radiology programs around the country are now warning residents that the
recalls cannot be used.
Dr. Anne Silas, chairwoman of the diagnostic radiology department at
Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, where residents told CNN that recalls
were widely used, said they are not condoned.
"In general and in the past, recalls have provided a framework for studies,
a study guide, but none of it is coming from a program level; it is not
something provided for anyone," she said.
Asked if using recalls is considered cheating, Silas said, "I don't believe
it would be fair to accuse our trainees of cheating on that basis."
At Massachusetts General Hospital, which is affiliated with Harvard Medical
School, residents also told CNN that they routinely used recalls for years.
Dr. James Thrall, the hospital's chief of radiology, told CNN he was not
personally aware of the use of recalls at the hospital, but said if they
were used, it was not endorsed by the faculty.
"I have a problem with the recall system if the exam is not changed. But if
the exam is substantially changed from one year to the other, then the
recalled questions really become in my view more of a learning resource,"
Thrall said.
Asked about the ABR's efforts to crack down on the recalls, Thrall said, "I
think it's going to be very difficult to police it."
Dr. King Li, chairman of the department of radiology at The Methodist
Hospital in Houston, said he does not endorse the use of recalls, but
acknowledges it is difficult to stop because residents have used them for so
long.
"It's not OK when everybody is doing it, but the people who are doing it
will use this as an excuse to make it acceptable to themselves," he said.
Asked about someone like Webb, who is speaking out about the recalls, Li
said, "If you are someone who doesn't want to use the recalls on your exams,
you may been seen as someone who is aloof and too good for his practice,
and also potentially a whistle-blower. So that can make this person
uncomfortable in the peer group."
Dr. Kevin Weiss, president and CEO of the American Board of Medical
Specialties, said he had not heard about anything similar to the radiology
testing issue in other medical specialties. The ABMS is the umbrella group
for 24 boards and 152 specialties and sub-specialties.
"The concern is sharing questions is ever-present. Our board takes great
pains to make sure exam securities are well managed," he said.
The issue of test sharing arose in 2010 when the American Board of Internal
Medicine suspended 139 doctors for sharing test questions with an exam
review company.
In a statement, Dr. Christine Cassel, president and CEO of the American
Board of Internal Medicine, said, "Sharing test questions from memory is a
serious problem that threatens the integrity of all standardized testing.
Test takers need to know that this kind of 'brain dumping' is grossly
unethical and the American Board of Internal Medicine will not tolerate
unethical behavior from physicians seeking board certification. ABIM will
take appropriate action against anyone who seeks to compromise the integrity
of our examinations.
Most of the cases against the suspended doctors have been resolved. Drew
Wachler, an attorney who handled many of those cases, told CNN, "The cases
were really resolved through settlement agreements with ABIM."
"We articulated the impact on these physicians," Wachler said. "We tried to
present their body of work throughout their entire careers, looking at the
extraordinary references they received, their conduct throughout medical
school, residencies. It was resolved in that fashion."
At least one doctor who was suspended said she did nothing wrong. The ABIM
suspended and sued Dr. Sarah Von Muller, accusing her of sharing test
questions with the test review company. Von Muller denies the charges.
"I don't know what kind of settlements occurred with the other doctors and
ABIM," she told CNN.
"But under no circumstance am I willing to sign a paper stating that I
cheated or that I copyrighted their material, because I didn't."
She added that "a lot of people would just roll over and do whatever they
had to do to get out of this mess, but I'm not going to do that. I'm going
to fight because this is more -- this is principle, and this is wrong, and
if I don't stand up to the playground bully and fight this, no one else will
."
The ABIM declined to comment because of the pending litigation.
The ABR's Becker said that despite the use of the recalls, the public is
protected because of the overall training and an intensive oral exam that
residents must undergo to become certified.
Next year, the board is rolling out a new exam for the first time in more
than 10 years. Instead of two written tests and one oral exam, the first
exam will be a "core exam" taken after three years of residency training,
and the second certifying exam taken 15 months after graduation. The oral
exam is being eliminated.
"ABR is replacing its proven and time-tested exam format, which includes an
oral exam, with new, highly standardized computer-based exams that will be
more objective and better able to assess the abilities of the physician
examinees, without measuring extraneous factors not uncommon when candidates
take the orals, such as nervousness," Becker said.
As far as the recalls, the only formal complaint to the ABR has been about
the military program in San Antonio, Becker said.
"Now I could say we don't have any more information on other programs, we
haven't heard similar reports from other residents, but if and when we ever
hear of any, we're going to track them down," he said. | L****n
发帖数: 12932 | 2 yeah, only radiologists do that, we anesthesiologists never cheat.
who
could
your convenience:
【在 P********r 的大作中提到】
: What do you think?
: (warning: 1.it's super longenthy;2.when you become a doc,you always got to
: hold your professionalism first--- even when approached by some nice guy who
: just wants a chitchat with you during a break at a conference: he/she could
: be with CNN :-)
: Here is the link and I also copy pasted the original article below for your convenience:
: http://www.cnn.com/2012/01/13/health/prescription-for-cheating/
: ****************
: (CNN) -- For years, doctors around the country taking an exam to become
: board certified in radiology have cheated by memorizing test questions,
| D*********r
发帖数: 371 | 3 其实这帮出题目的人也该反省反省，这么大规模的有组织的“作弊”还是因为那个 物
理板，对于80%去pp的放射科来说，这个 物理版 真的需要那么深入吗？
【在 L****n 的大作中提到】
: yeah, only radiologists do that, we anesthesiologists never cheat.
:
: who
: could
: your convenience:
| P********r
发帖数: 92 | 4 同意出题目的人欠被‘lay off’ 去 反省。
我对这’recall test bank‘ 是否是’Cheating挺感兴趣。
下面的留言中不少是针对 ’Chinese' 的，说 Chinese 在 GRE 及 sub 中的 Cheating
。
我脚的当年考GRE，Toffle 不比靠 board 省心啊。（用的全是新东方）。按这说法也
是 cheating 了。
【在 D*********r 的大作中提到】
: 其实这帮出题目的人也该反省反省，这么大规模的有组织的“作弊”还是因为那个 物
: 理板，对于80%去pp的放射科来说，这个 物理版 真的需要那么深入吗？
|
|
