ABMS Member Boards are responsible for setting the standards for quality practice in a particular medical specialty. Each Member Board has a board of trustees or directors, all of whom are certified in that Board's medical specialty. Individual Member Boards evaluate physician candidates on several fronts, asking questions such as: Has the candidate completed the appropriate residency requirements? Does he or she have an institutional or valid license to practice medicine? If a physician meets these basic admission standards, the Member Board will evaluate the candidate using written and oral examinations. Because specialties differ so widely, the criteria that inform these tests are quite different. What makes someone a good anesthesiologist does not necessarily make him or her a competent cardiologist.
