Purpose: To demonstrate the degree to which the American Board of Family Medicine's certification examination is representative of family physician practice with regard to frequency of diagnoses encounter and the criticality of the diagnoses.
Methods: Data from 2012 National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey was used to assess the frequency of diagnoses encountered by family physicians nationally. These diagnoses were also rated by a panel of content experts for how critical it was to diagnose and treat the condition correctly and then assign the condition to 1 of the 16 content categories used on the American Board of Family Medicine examination.