Description:

This chapter aims to demystify the certification/recertification process and to delineate for the test-taker what to expect on day of your gastroenterology examination. Recent changes to the American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM) Maintenance of Certification (MOC) program are discussed and explained. A great deal of effort and thought goes into developing appropriate questions for the examination, and understanding this process can prepare you for what you will be expected to know as you take the examination. What is being tested during a certification examination is the depth of your knowledge and understanding, which may require assessing your ability to recognize esoteric facts presented in the stems of the questions. This examination is meant to evaluate your knowledge, diagnostic reasoning, and judgment. Embedded in that concept is the fact that many of the questions will assess whether or not you’re decision-making and thought processes are within the expected standard of care for specific diseases. Artificial intelligence (AI) based on deep learning boosted medical research in the past years and is expected to enormously change the style of health care in many aspects in the foreseeable future. Nowadays, there are exploding volumes of healthcare-related data being generated daily. Because of its time-sensitive characteristics, being able to process large amounts of data in real-time fashion is crucial in healthcare settings. In gastroenterology practice, AI can manage and interpret the sheer amount of data with different formats coming from a myriad of sources, including currently used endoscopic or imaging devices, digital record systems, and electronic health records, or from other sources such as governmental databases, social media, or wearable devices over a long period.

Traditional gastroenterology is nowadays beginning to transform to a new personalized, predictive, and preventive paradigm. Evidence-based practices and recent studies are coming out every day, and big data-based approaches and the progress in basic sciences and its emerging applications are now becoming the indispensable part of precision medicine. In gastroenterology, AI can be applied in disease diagnosis, treatment guidance, outcome prediction, and reducing workload of the healthcare staff. As the healthcare community begins to embrace AI technology, how to seamlessly construct an interoperable platform to accommodate data with high variety and veracity with high velocity and implement AI in the clinical workflow would be the future challenges. There are some differences between the spectrums of gastroenterological diseases in Vietnam compared with those of more developed countries. These may be due to different living standards, quality of nutrition, and different infection rates of intestinal parasites and hepatotropic viruses. Gastric carcinoma and Hepatocellular Carcinoma (HCC) are leading malignancies, while colorectal cancer is less frequent. Bile duct stones often have Ascaris eggs in the centre, and they prevail in incidence over gallbladder stones. The majority of digestive cancers are detected at a very late stage. The Vietnamese Association of Gastroenterology aims to contribute to the development of modern gastroenterology (GE) in Vietnam, to study and apply recent advances in imaging technology, such as fibre-optic diagnostic and therapeutical endoscopy, ultrasonography, laparoscopic surgery etc. and to do further work in molecular biology. For this purpose, besides our self-reliance, we need, and ask for, support and assistance from the Japanese Society of GE (JSGE), the Asian Pacific Association of GE (APAGE) and the Organisation Mondiale de GE (OMEGE). At the same time, we suggest a choice be made among the different technologies, bearing in mind their cost-effectiveness, and to give preference to measures for the primary prevention and early detection of the diseases. We recommend also a judicious and scientific combination of traditional medicine and modern technology in the research and the struggle against digestive diseases.

With Regards
Jnderson
Journal Coordinator
Global Journal of Research and Review