Letter: Ultimately, MOC will fail

There is no preponderance of evidence to support the proponents of MOC.

I suspect that driving force behind MOC is the Institute of Medicine’s 2000 report “To Err is Human” (National Academy Press, 2000) wherein it reported that 44,000 to 98,000 hospital deaths occurred because of medical errors each year. That study only looked at statistics from New York, Utah, and Colorado.

Clearly, even one preventable death is a tragedy, but rather than concentrate on making hospital care safer, MOC was and is applied to all specialties, many of which do not even treat patients in the hospital.

There is lots of continuing medical education (CME) available to physicians. Most self-direct their education. Many hospitals offer CME to their staffs and many good self-study programs exist. MOC  detracts from the ability of those programs to survive.

Ultimately, MOC will fail. Its mandatory status, its pass/fail approach and its lack of practicality will appeal only to those in teaching positions in academia who are desirous of adding another accolade to their resumes.

Add to this the rumors that surround its profit-making success and it is clear that MOC will not succeed.

Edward Volpintesta, MD

 Bethel, Connecticut