Board Meeting Minutes

ABGERO minutes (8/8/14)

Board members present: Molinari (Chair), Hinrichsen, Allen, Heck, Zweig

Agenda items:

1) Exams completed – As of the end of the APA meeting (8/10), we have completed 26 oral exams. We have four more to examine at GSA. Three people have now submitted all materials with the hope of being examined at GSA, and there are a number of others in the pipeline.  We are optimistic regarding our chances of reaching our goal of thirty examinations so that we will become a full-fledged specialty with full voting rights by the end of the year.

2) Finances – As a full-fledged specialty, we will be entitled to an annual outlay of $5000 per year, plus ~$550 for each oral exam we conduct, to defray examination costs. We will soon be in need of a Treasurer to manage this largesse. Please let me know if anyone is interested in this role in 2015.

3) Maintenance of Certification – MOC will begin January 1, 2015. The ABGERO plan is being reviewed. Everyone who takes the examination in 2015 and thereafter will need to be re-certified every 10 years. All those who have been examined prior to 2015 may opt out of re-certification.

4) More ABGERO examiners – ABGERO needs to begin thinking about recruiting ABGERO examiners so that we can conduct regional examinations. There is the possibility that we will soon have examining teams in the northeast; southeast, Midwest (depending upon one’s definition), and California. I am recruiting some other senior people who have already passed the exam to observe exams at GSA and review the ABGERO slides so they can become examiners in 2015. At this point, Sara Qualls, Bob Knight, and Lisa Brown are our 3 non board member examiners.

5) Implementation Plan – We will need to complete a final Implementation Plan. Many revisions have been made and these will need to be reviewed. It does not appear that our revised Implementation Plan will need to be officially approved by the ABPP Board of Trustees. Andrew has kindly agreed to assist with the write-up of an examiner’s manual.

Two other issues are surfacing:

One – self-identity as a geropsychologist – We need to re-visit our criteria that self-identification as a geropsychologist is mandatory to meet ABGERO specialty criteria. Does this not prevent needed cross-fertilization for geropsychology with those who self-identify as rehab/health/neuro psychologists but who may also have the requisite geropsychology functional competencies in assessment, intervention, and consultation. For example, a senior neuropsychologist approached me about an interest in becoming an ABGERO. Let’s talk about this perhaps at our next board meeting, or maybe we will begin a LISTSERV dialogue soon.

Two – Written exam? One thing that I have broached with different board members is the idea of a written exam and my assumption that it would be prohibitively expensive (e.g., Neuropsychology contracted out their revisions of their current written exam at a cost of $20,000). However, I just found out that there is no rule against ABGERO doing it ourselves. The good majority of candidates pass the written exams in the two other specialties that have them (Forensics, Neuropsychology), but I think they believe that it’s nice to know that all the ABPPs in their specialty agree upon a certain body of knowledge. Police and Public Safety are also developing a written exam.  I think after this year, we should consider developing a written exam and I hope to form a sub-committee to explore this option.