Eyelid Surgery and the
Myth of "Board-Certification"

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In perusing on-line and printed material from practices promoting cosmetic eyelid surgery, you will undoubtedly encounter the term "Board Certified." In reference to selecting a blepharoplasty surgeon, how important is this? Likewise, you will occasionally run across a doctor claiming to be "Board Certified in Ophthalmic Plastic Surgery," which may sound even better. Is it? To make sense of such issues requires that you first understand at least a little about the requirements for a physician to become "Board-Certified." There are twenty-four officially recognized American "Boards", all of which are sanctioned members of their venerable parent organization known as the American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS). Any other non-ABMS "Association" or "Society" of doctors is not a true "Board" in the formal sense, even if the group chooses to incorporate that word into its name (in medical circles, such groups are sometimes referred to as "bogus-boards"). While certification requirements vary widely Board to Board, for a physician to become certified by an ABMS Board, he or she must first complete an approved residency in the applicable specialty, receive recommendations attesting to professional and ethical competence from professors, pass written and oral examinations, and have already been in practice for a year or two. How hard is this? Unlike the "Bar examination" for new attorneys, the overwhelming majority of physicians who complete a residency achieve Board-Certification status on the first attempt. In essence, then, the designation "Board Certified" means only that . . .

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