Establishing osteopathic assessments to fulfill osteopathic recognition standards: a model for dermatology and other...

The 5 year transition period for American Osteopathic Association (AOA) training programs to apply for and receive Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) accreditation (i.e., the single graduate medical education system) was completed June 30, 2020. Of the previously AOA accredited programs that applied for or received osteopathic recognition (OR), only 24.5% are nonprimary care specialty programs according to the ACGME. The reluctance of specialty programs to apply for OR may be because osteopathic principles and practices (OPP) are not assessed. In order for programs to receive OR, they must have a standard method of assessment to assess osteopathic knowledge, including OPP and osteopathic manipulative treatment. In this Commentary, based on our assessment of the results of a literature review, we propose a model to provide a focused osteopathic assessment for the purposes of maintaining OR within residency training based on the ACGME six core competencies. Examples of multiple choice and essay questions are provided, as is a rubric for grading. The model is applied to the field of dermatology in this article and could serve as a blueprint to other subspecialties. With this framework, collaboration among programs will streamline the process to obtain OR in the ACGME single accreditation system.