ABIM Blog (03/20/25) Tanoue, Lynn T.

The American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM) is requesting comments on a proposal to recognize interventional pulmonology as a subspecialty of pulmonary disease with its own certificate. The American Association for Bronchology and Interventional Pulmonology (AABIP) has asked to be included in the roster of disciplines recognized by the American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS). ABIM is a member board of ABMS. Practice specialties that wish to be recognized as a new ABIM discipline must meet criteria set by the New and Emerging Disciplines in Internal Medicine report. In this case, AABIP has shown that interventional pulmonology features a specific and documented set of knowledge; has clinical practice separate from its parent discipline, pulmonary medicine; has proven social need and improvement of patient care; and has furthered research and scholarship with new knowledge. This and other information was presented to the ABIM Pulmonary Disease Board in May 2024. The Pulmonary Disease Board later voted to authorize ABIM to survey the pulmonary disease community's opinion of the proposal to create the new subspecialty. Septimiu Murgu, MD, Immediate Past President of AABIP, said: "AABIP believes that Board Certification of interventional pulmonology (IP) physicians is a responsibility of our subspecialty. Since the primary constituency for certification is the public, we believe certification in IP represents a professional demonstration of public accountability and transparency. As individual state licensing bodies and institutional credentialing committees do not extensively regulate and measure physicians' claims of expertise in IP, board certification in IP is needed to independently verify that physicians have the necessary knowledge and skills to practice within our field." Comments are being accepted through May 1, 2025.

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