Continuing Your Professional Journey After Licensure with the NBOME

October 25, 2022

The NBOME is best-known for developing COMLEX-USA, the only osteopathically distinctive licensure examination series accepted for licensure in all 50 states and multiple international jurisdictions. We take immense pride in knowing that these examinations contribute to ensuring we have a workforce of competent, caring, and compassionate osteopathic physicians who serve the best interests of their patients, aligned with the osteopathic philosophy in which they were trained and educated.

Even after you complete your Road to DO Licensure, and after you pass COMLEX-USA Level 3, the NBOME still works to support you as your professional journey continues. Beyond licensure, we work with practicing physicians to help them maintain the quality of care patients expect from a DO.

Here are just some of the ways the NBOME supports DOs beyond the Road to DO Licensure:

NBOME National Faculty

Our network of more than 700 diverse thought leaders spans all areas of the country and all aspects of the osteopathic profession, from educators, to full-time practicing physicians, to experts in assessment, licensure, and regulation.

National Faculty members assist the NBOME in building and maintaining COMLEX-USA, our COMAT assessments, and other services such as COMSAE and WelCOM, through the writing and development of test items, cases, and rationales, and standard-setting and related quality assurance initiatives.

As a result, members of our National Faculty earn CME (category 1A and 1B) credits through the American Osteopathic Association (AOA), enjoy an expanded professional network, and participate in scholarly activities that can bolster applications for promotion and tenure.

You can get your residents involved in scholarly activity with the NBOME as well. Nominate senior residents (those who have completed their COMLEX-USA series) for test-development activities and faculty development in our “Residency Recruitment program.” For more information, email NationalFaculty@NBOME.org .

CATALYST Platform

CATALYST is a longitudinal assessment platform designed to enhance continuous professional development. It allows for targeted learning, in that it assesses knowledge over time, identifying trouble spots and increasing the volume and frequency of relevant content related to opportunities for improvement. It provides learning outcomes in real-time and can be customized to fit around a physician or learner’s busy schedule.

The AOA uses CATALYST to administer its osteopathic continuous certification (OCC) for 14 of its specialty certifying boards. The AOA’s OCC is designed to provide opportunities for continuous professional development centered on patient care, practice enhancement and lifelong learning. Three more specialty certifying boards are expected to use CATALYST for their exams beginning in January 2023. NBOME uses the CATALYST platform as well to power other assessments (e.g., WelCOM, resident-in-training formative assessments) across the continuum.

Online Learning

The new-and-improved NBOME Learning Center offers on-demand, self-paced, online learning activities that provide continuous professional development and CME opportunities for osteopathic physicians and other health care professionals.

These opportunities include:

• The NBOME Learning Assessment Series—NBOME-developed modules to help medical educators learn more about test question and assessment development, scoring, and related topics
• On-Demand CME Activities—self-paced, and approved for AOA CME credit, and developed in partnership with colleges of osteopathic medicine and osteopathic specialty boards.

Assessment of the competencies required to practice osteopathic medicine is at the core of the NBOME’s mission to protect the public. But as you can see, the NBOME also has many other ways to meet that mission while also supporting practicing DOs and related health professionals as they continue on their professional journey.

We hope that you’ll stop by the NBOME booth at OMED 2022 to hear from NBOME staff and leadership about these and more opportunities for professional development.