Costs and Benefits of Initial Certification for Emergency Medicine Residency Graduates.

Background: Graduates of emergency medicine residency programs can seek certification from the American Board of Emergency Medicine (ABEM), yet the costs and perceived value by residents is not clear.

Objective: This report sought to better define the value of board certification by asking physicians taking the ABEM Oral Certification Examination (OCE) to describe its costs (eg, time, money) and perceived benefits.

Methods: A descriptive, cross-sectional, voluntary, anonymous survey was administered to physicians taking the 2018 spring and fall ABEM OCEs.

Initial Validity Analysis of the American Board of Emergency Medicine Enhanced Oral Examination.

Objectives: The American Board of Emergency Medicine (ABEM) has introduced a new testing format for the oral certification examination (OCE): the enhanced oral or "eOral" format. The purpose of this study was to perform initial validity analyses of the eOral format. The two hypotheses were: 1) the case content in the eOral format was sufficiently similar to clinical practice and 2) the eOral case materials were sufficiently similar to clinical practice.

The safety of intravenously administered vitamin K.

Literature sources suggest that iv vitamin K is associated with significant adverse side effects. Systematic study and documentation is lacking. In this 2-y retrospective review, 100 sequential doses of iv administered vitamin K in 45 patients were identified by computer-generated pharmacy utilization reports in an adult teaching hospital.