October 4, 2022

RE: ACGME Specialty Separation Update

Dear Colleagues:

As you are aware, in June of this year the ABPM announced that the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) formally approved the separate designations of the three Preventive Medicine specialties: Aerospace Medicine, Occupational and Environmental Medicine, and Public Health and General Preventive Medicine.

One of the desired results is that ACGME’s Accreditation Data System (ADS) would list each of the preventive medicine specialties separately. ABPM is pleased to announce that this important update is now complete. This is an important step in increasing the visibility of preventive medicine specialties to medical school students and physicians searching for new career paths. While no significant changes to the curricula or ACGME Core Competencies were made, each specialty now has its own set of program requirements, frequently asked questions, and application forms. As a result, the specialty of “Occupational and Environmental Medicine” is now listed as a separate specialty under which all Occupational and Environmental Medicine residency programs fall.

To be consistent with ACGME’s terminology and to update ABPM’s vocabulary to reflect the breadth of this specialty, ABPM has updated its website to change all references from “Occupational Medicine” to “Occupational and Environmental Medicine” and, going forward, will refer to the specialty by its new name in all communications and documentation.

If you have any questions about this update, please do not hesitate to reach out to ABPM Staff via email at [email protected].

Sincerely,

Wendy E. Braund, MD, MPH, MSEd, FACPM
ABPM Board Chair