By Tish Reilly*
ABD Residency and Fellowship Coordinator
To all Dermatology Program Directors and Coordinators:
I know you stay busy, preparing your residents and fellows to become successful dermatologists. And I know you face a mountain of administrative chores that never seems to go away.
But let me make the case for why you should prioritize adding all your residents to your Program Roster without delay! July 1 is the deadline, but if you have the information, why wait? Go to your program dashboard, where you will also find tons of useful resources and information.
Residents must be added to a Program Roster before they can complete the ABD Preliminary Registration form. The Preliminary Registration process allows residents to create their ABD profiles. The profile is critical for receiving important messages from the ABD, registering for ABD exams, retrieving exam results and signing off on their annual evaluations.
Registering Fellows may be even more important. They have one exam to earn their subspecialty certification. But if the ABD doesn’t know they are doing a fellowship, we don’t know to tell them when to sign up for that exam, or when the exam will be given. Worst case scenario is that they must wait an entire year before becoming certified in their subspecialty.
Most Programs complete their rosters thoroughly and on time – and we thank you!
But as Residency and Fellowship coordinator for the American Board of Dermatology, I’ve seen the consequences of forgetting to register someone.
It’s not pretty.
A resident wants to take a BASIC or CORE exam, and they can’t sign up because they don’t have an ABD profile. Or someone has transferred into your program, but their ABD profile still lists them at their former program.
Updating your Program Roster may not seem like a big deal. And it’s not… until it is. Don’t put yourself and your resident or fellow at risk for additional stress and delay.
*Ms. Reilly has been on staff at the ABD for more than 10 years. She is responsible for new resident onboarding, program tasks and deadlines, and resident and fellow evaluations. She’s also an expert at helping diplomates and trainees get back on track with ABD requirements. She can be reached at tish@abderm.org or 617-910-6400 ext. 5.
Attention Dermatology Training Programs: Adding residents to your Program Roster allows them to create their ABD profiles so they can receive important messages, register for ABD exams, retrieve exam results and sign off on their annual evaluations. Registering fellows ensures that the ABD knows to alert them to subspecialty exam deadlines
