WVU doctor’s comments on assessing physician competency noted in MedPage Today

A set of guiding principles from the American Medical Association Council on assessing the competency of senior/late career physicians failed to gain adoption at the AMA's interim meeting.

Ann Murray, M.D., assistant professor and an alternate delegate for the American Academy of Neurology, called the intention of the report "noble," but opposed adoption.

She explained that competency is important for the medical community at any age, and that as a neurologist, she frequently sees younger patients with multiple sclerosis who have cognitive changes as do elderly patients with Parkinson's and Alzheimer's.

"When I see physicians with such disorders, I have to rely on the current competency evaluations to ensure competence. I do not make these patients jump through additional hoops to prove their competence, and I think that it's a really slippery slope to start doing that to any group of people, especially our colleagues, solely based on the number of birthdays they've had," Murray said.

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