What motivated you to volunteer with the ACVIM, or how did you first get involved with the organization?
Truthfully, I missed engaging with other neurologists and wanted to continue to be involved in the more “academic” side of this career while maintaining connections with other neurologists. I think it is important, particularly in private practice, where we can become so inundated with larger caseloads, to always stay engaged in active learning and moving the needle forward with our profession.
Could you describe the work of the committee and how this work contributes to the overall mission/goals of the ACVIM?
We are a group of specialists from different backgrounds that are volunteering our time to review the entire certifier exam prior to administration. Our goals are to ensure that the questions are appropriate, keyed properly, and that the references listed for the question are updated (when possible) to reflect the materials and date ranges on the test preparation document. Sometimes we augment questions that need minor tweaking to be kept on the exam, but other times, entire questions are sent to a figurative graveyard for a variety of reasons. Because the items are being pulled from a large bank, we are also checking for duplicate questions or repeat items that would be redundant or too similar.
As the chair of this committee, what responsibilities and duties do you undertake?
All of the same responsibilities I have described above, plus I review the final form (effectively take the exam) to ensure that the changes made during our meetings are reflected in the final product. After the exam has been administered and the statistics are available, I also take part in reviewing the overall performance of the candidates to identify potentially problematic items that may not have performed well. There is a lot of discussion during this review because we want to make sure that a poorly written or potentially inappropriate question did not “unfairly” impact the success of the exam takers.
Can you share a successful collaboration story that highlights the positive impact of teamwork within your committee?
Updating the references for some of these questions takes a tremendous amount of time. We all work together to divide questions that need updated references, and if someone doesn’t have access to the newest edition of some text or journal, we have been able to work together to figure it out. Rell Parker, my co-chair, was constantly searching through some of her texts to find the most precise and updated references.
How has your involvement with the ACVIM and chairing this committee personally enriched your professional experience and contributed to your growth in the field of veterinary internal medicine?
It’s been really nice to engage with other specialists from different training programs and paths within this field. Being exposed to the exam year after year, double-checking the answers to the items and the references is always a great reminder of just how much the residents are expected to know and a great refresher for me as well. Effectively taking the exam over and over again is a great reminder of how important it is to be a lifelong learner if you are to excel in this profession.
I’ve also made some friends during this process who I chat with regularly about cases and life in general, which has been so valuable and honestly unexpected.
What advice would you give to other Diplomates considering volunteering with the ACVIM?
I would absolutely encourage other specialists to get involved! It can be challenging, of course, volunteering your free time (which most of us probably do not have in abundance) for work-tangential tasks, especially when you are trying to coordinate meeting times with people in different time zones with different schedules. But ultimately, this has been a rewarding experience for me, and I look forward to being involved in other volunteer opportunities within the organization.
Looking ahead, what are your aspirations for the committee and its impact within ACVIM? Are there any upcoming projects or goals that you are particularly excited about?
My first year on the committee was the first year that the entire format of the exam changed, which resulted in a myriad of challenges. A lot of the initial issues were technical in nature and have improved tremendously, but I do think I would like to see more discussion, if possible, across the different committees to make the form as strong as it can be with the current format My hope is that we will continue to see the pursuit of generating a fair examination that is reflective of the breadth and depth of baseline knowledge that a boarded neurologist should possess at the end of their training program.
