ABS Continuous Certification

As part of Continuous Certification, the ABS requires diplomates to earn 150 credits of Category-1 CME over five years. The CME must be relevant to their practice, or if clinically inactive, to the broad discipline of surgery. Category-1 CME activities are formal educational experiences accredited by the AMA, ACCME, RCPSC or EACCME. These may include seminars, conferences, grand rounds, webinars, podcasts, skills courses and departmental scientific meetings. Check with your CME provider or the ACCME’s CME Passport website to find CME activities that meet ABS Continuous Certification requirements. At least 50 of the 150 CME credits must include a self-assessment component. When you participate in a CME activity that includes self-assessment (SA), the SA credits will be transferred to ABS along with the Category-1 credits via the PARS system. Check the ACCME’s CME Passport website to find CME activities that meet ABS Continuous Certification requirements. Activities with self-assessment will be denoted with “SA” (e.g., ABS Point: 1; ABS Credit Type(s) CME, SA).

If your question is regarding self-reporting through ABS or questions regarding your ABS board portal, please direct any questions to the ABS. For more information please visit American Board of Surgery 

ABS Eligible Activities

Not all CME activities are automatically recognized for physician MOC credit.  Physician MOC credit is only reported for CME activities that meet the rigorous requirements set forth by a particular board and were approved by the CME provider in advance.  If an activity qualifies for MOC credit, it will be specifically stated and automatically reported to the board on our end.

The UPMC CCEHS offers ABS MOC to a select number of activities meeting the board requirements for Continuous Certification. These activities will have the following statement, "Successful completion of this CME activity enables the learner to earn credit toward the CME requirements of the American Board of Surgery’s Continuous Certification program. It is the CME activity provider's responsibility to submit learner completion information to ACCME for the purpose of granting ABS credit."

To have your completion of an ABS approved activity transmitted to the board, please add your Date of Birth and Board/Board ID number to your UPMC CCEHS CME profile. Instructions can be found here.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Credits cannot be awarded retroactively. For this reason, if you were not awarded CME credit before the credit claiming deadline, or your CCE account, http://cce.upmc.com, did not identify you as an ABS diplomate (including your Date of Birth (DOB) and Board ID), we are unable to transfer your credits