As a passionate educator and clinician, Benjamin Kinnear, MD, MEd, has built a career dedicated to transforming medical education and providing quality patient care. His work as an attending physician in the Division of Hospital Medicine and as an associate professor in both Internal Medicine and Pediatrics at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine and Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center demonstrates his commitment to innovation, mentorship, and systems-level thinking. He is board certified by the American Board of Internal Medicine and the American Board of Pediatrics and serves as Deputy Editor for the Journal of Hospital Medicine and Associate Editor for Perspectives on Medical Education.
Becoming an ABMS Visiting Scholar
Dr. Kinnear was selected as a 2022–2023 American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS) Visiting Scholar™, which is a national program that supports early-career physicians and researchers in advancing physician assessment and certification.
Reflecting on the ABMS Visiting Scholars Program, Dr. Kinnear credits it with keeping him and his research grounded. “My project was very theoretical, so it would have been easy to spin off into an ethereal world that is only meaningful to the few people who study validity,” said Dr. Kinnear. “But by being part of that Visiting Scholars community and having to present my work over and over, I was pushed to connect the theoretical to something concrete and meaningful, like board certification.”
Dr. Kinnear encourages people with fresh ideas to apply to the program, even if they are inexperienced at writing grant proposals. “Unlike many grants out there, the Visiting Scholars program application is not onerous—it is brief, straightforward, and does not take months to complete,” he advised. “With a manageable application process, an early-career professional can have the incredible opportunity to meet thought leaders, get their ideas out there, and accelerate their career.”
A Vision for Competency-Based Medical Education
Dr. Kinnear’s Visiting Scholar project, “Examining the Nature of Validity Argumentation in Health Professions Education Assessment,” explored the attitudes and beliefs of validity scholars and competency-based medical education (CBME) stakeholders about the nature of argumentation in assessment validity. CBME is an outcomes-based approach to physician training that foregrounds the importance of trainee assessment. Dr. Kinnear’s work, which was supported by the ABMS Research and Education Foundation, sought to understand how validity arguments can help make competency-based assessment decisions more defensible.
“My ABMS Visiting Scholars Project was focused on the concept of validity, which is central to all types of assessment in medical education,” said Dr. Kinnear. “I was really interested in how the concept of argumentation can inform how we use validity in our field, which is very relevant to physician certification.”
Dr. Kinnear’s ABMS work was part of his doctoral thesis in Health Professions Education from Maastricht University. “My PhD program provided a structured way to get mentorship from brilliant, generous, and creative people and to seek out projects and questions that I otherwise would have permanently put on the back burner,” he said.
Innovating from the Ground Up
Dr. Kinnear is part of the University of Cincinnati RADICAL (Research in Assessment Designed to Improve Care and Learning) Lab, a group of education scholars focused on innovation and research. Dr. Kinnear is also the program director for the Med-Peds residency program. He co-leads the Medical Education Pathway for residents, helps shape quality improvement curricula, and helped shape the residency’s program of assessment. As a Macy Faculty Scholar, Dr. Kinnear piloted time-variable training within the internal medicine residency, replacing traditional time-based markers with competency-based progression.
National Engagement and Ongoing Collaboration
Dr. Kinnear continues to engage with ABMS and the broader medical education community. He serves on the planning committee and recently served as the opening speaker at the Symposium on Competency-Based Medical Education, which is co-sponsored by the ABMS and the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME). “That meeting is a crucible of innovation,” he noted. “We bring together representatives from ABMS Member Boards, the ACGME, American Medical Association, and others—each working with different learner populations and at different stages of CBME innovation.”
He has also collaborated closely with the American Board of Pediatrics under the mentorship of Daniel Schumacher, MD, PhD, MEd, who also is an ABMS Visiting Scholars alumnus, to understand how Entrustable Professional Activities (EPAs) can crosswalk with ACGME milestones.
Shaping the Future of Certification
Dr. Kinnear sees board certification as a cornerstone of public accountability. “Board certification is our field’s mechanism to show the public that we are holding ourselves accountable to only send truly prepared physicians into unsupervised practice to provide high-quality patient care,” he said. “I believe we have a responsibility to the public, and that responsibility lies not only with the ABMS Member Boards, but also with programs and program directors like me.”
As a Med-Peds mentor for local and national residents through the Medicine-Pediatrics Program Directors Association, Dr. Kinnear understands the challenges of getting residents to appreciate the purpose and value of certification. “Residency is such a high-cognitive-load period that it is hard for residents to step back and reflect on how certification fits into their professional journey,” said Dr. Kinnear. “I would like to see part of the board certification process begin in training, so that it can be more relevant to residents, and they can better appreciate its significance to providing quality patient care.”
Lifelong Learning and Mentorship
Beyond his administrative and clinical work, Dr. Kinnear is an enthusiastic mentor, partnering with learners on research and educational innovation projects. His approach is grounded in curiosity and humility. “I love clinical teaching, education theory, and innovation. My goal is to give residents a world-class training experience.”
He also believes in continually proving the value of certification to the public through outcomes-based studies. “There is some important research happening right now—led by people like Dr. Daniel Schumacher—that is asking: ‘How well are we meeting the promises we have made?’ That’s the kind of work that helps ensure certification continues to serve the public good.”
Whether mentoring future physicians, leading system-wide innovations, or refining the science of assessment, Dr. Kinnear remains a powerful advocate for education that meets the evolving needs of learners and the public they serve.
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