title: Trends in American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology specialties and neurologic subspecialties.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To review the current status and recent trends in the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology (ABPN) specialties and neurologic subspecialties and discuss the implications of those trends for subspecialty viability.
  
  
  METHODS
  Data on numbers of residency and fellowship programs and graduates and ABPN certification candidates and diplomates were drawn from several sources, including ABPN records, Web sites of the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education and the American Medical Association, and the annual medical education issues of the Journal of the American Medical Association.
  
  
  RESULTS
  About four-fifths of neurology graduates pursue fellowship training. While most recent neurology and child neurology graduates attempt to become certified by the ABPN, many clinical neurophysiologists elect not to do so. There appears to have been little interest in establishing fellowships in neurodevelopmental disabilities. The pass rate for fellowship graduates is equivalent to that for the "grandfathers" in clinical neurophysiology. Lower percentages of clinical neurophysiologists than specialists participate in maintenance of certification, and maintenance of certification pass rates are high.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The initial enthusiastic interest in training and certification in some of the ABPN neurologic subspecialties appears to have slowed, and the long-term viability of those subspecialties will depend upon the answers to a number of complicated social, economic, and political questions in the new health care era.
authors.affiliation: American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology, 2150 E. Lake Cook Road, Suite 900, Buffalo Grove, IL 60089, USA. lfaulkner@abpn.com
authors.forename: L R
authors.initials: LR
authors.lastname: Faulkner
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Juul
authors.forename: R M
authors.initials: RM
authors.lastname: Pascuzzi
authors.forename: M J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Aminoff
authors.forename: P K
authors.initials: PK
authors.lastname: Crumrine
authors.forename: S T
authors.initials: ST
authors.lastname: Dekosky
authors.forename: R F
authors.initials: RF
authors.lastname: Jozefowicz
authors.forename: J M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Massey
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Pirzada
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Tilton
mesh_terms: D005257:Fellowships and Scholarships / Q000639:trends*; D006801:Humans; D009462:Neurology / Q000639:trends*; D013044:Specialty Boards / Q000639:trends*; D014481:United States