The American Board of Surgery Inc

“The organization has an independent certified public accounting firm prepare the form 990. The form is then reviewed by the organization's controller, legal counsel, coo and president/ceo and any needed changes or updates are communicated back to the accounting firm. The 990 is reviewed in detail by the audit committee and then recommended for approval by the full board. All board members receive copies of the form 990 before the return is filed with the irs.”

“The organization has all directors sign a disclosure form annually attesting to the fact that they each have read, understood, and agreed to abide by the organization's conflict of interest policy. All new directors will be required to sign the same attestation upon their joining the board of directors. In addition, any director, officer, employee, member or committee member having an interest in a contract or other transaction presented to the board of directors or a committee thereof for authorization, approval, or ratification shall give prompt, full, and frank disclosure of his or her interest to the board or committee prior to acting on such contract or transaction. The board or committee shall gather comparability data regarding a possible conflict to make determinations regarding the fairness and reasonableness of the transaction. The interested party may make a presentation to the board or committee concerning the transaction or arrangement and the interested party's interest in the transaction or arrangement. The board or committee shall then discuss the transaction or arrangement without the interested party present, including the data gathered about possible more advantageous transactions or arrangements. If a more advantageous transaction or arrangement is not reasonably possible under circumstances not producing a conflict of interest, the board or committee shall determine by a majority vote of the disinterested directors whether the transaction or arrangement is in the corporation's best interest, for its own benefit, and whether it is fair and reasonable in conformity with this determination, it shall make its decision as to whether to enter into the transaction or arrangement.”

“In january 2021, the abs engaged an independent compensation consultant to provide relevant, competitive comparable market compensation information for selected executive positions, including the ceo, vice-presidents, and general counsel. The expert report concluded that all executives current rates of total compensation are reasonable. The compensation report and analysis for the executives were reviewed and approved by the abs audit committee and the board of directors, as confirmed in their respective minutes at that time. It is the policy of the abs to engage an independent review every 2-3 years or as contracts are renewed; therefore, an additional, updated review of the ceo compensation was performed in april 2022, as part of the contract renewal process.”

“Governing documents, conflict of interest policy, and financial statements are available upon request.”

“The american board of surgery's mission is to serve patients, society, and the specialty of surgery by providing leadership in surgical education and practice. The abs ensures excellence through: building a diverse, equitable, and inclusive culture; rigorous evaluation and assessment and promoting the highest standards for professionalism, lifelong learning, and continuous certification of surgeons in practice. The abs was founded in 1937 to provide board certification to individuals who have met a defined standard of education, training and knowledge in the field of surgery. Surgeons certified by the abs, known as diplomates, have completed at least 5 years of residency training following medical school, met all abs training requirements, and successfully completed the abs examination process. Once certified, abs diplomates must complete continuing education and assessment activities in a process now known as continuous certification. Board certification by the abs is a voluntary process that demonstrates a surgeon's commitment to professionalism, lifelong learning, and quality patient care. The abs offers board certification in surgery (general surgery), vascular surgery, pediatric surgery, surgical critical care, complex general surgical oncology, hand surgery, and hospice and palliative medicine. Separate from certification, abs also offers voluntary focused practice designation in metabolic and bariatric surgery. The abs also strives to improve the education of residents in general surgery and related specialties through the development of a national curriculum (score). Score's primary feature, the score portal, delivers educational content aligned with the curriculum to residents, fellows and training programs. Many abs examinations, such as the absite and the general surgery qualifying exam, include content that is aligned with score's curriculum in order to streamline the learning experience. The score curriculum is designed to define the various surgical specialties and provide greater assurance that residents and fellowship trainees are receiving sufficient training in all areas. In addition to the original score curriculum for general surgery, score's offerings have grown to include curriculums for vascular surgery, pediatric surgery and surgical critical care, with a surgical oncology curriculum currently in development. The score curriculum for general surgery focuses on the five years of progressive education and training that constitute general surgery residency in the u.s., after medical school but prior to independent practice, and has been developed in accordance with the six competencies expected of a graduating resident: patient care; medical knowledge; professionalism; interpersonal and communication skills; practice-based learning; and systems-based practice. The score curriculums for the other surgical specialties include topics to be covered in the years of training following residency.”

“In the spring of 2022, the abs offered its first focused practice designation (fpd) in metabolic and bariatric surgery (mbs). Fpd is a new designation for abms member boards that recognizes those diplomates who have focused their practice on one particular aspects of a given field of medicine or surgery. Mbs is an example of the development of focused practice within the specialty of general surgery. Most surgeons performing mbs are general surgeons who have focused a significant portion of their time on the practice of bariatric surgery and developing the infrastructure to support a comprehensive mbs program. Therefore, mbs is truly a variation of general surgery rather than a subspecialty of surgery. The purpose of the mbs fpd is to provide transparent information to those patients who seek to undergo bariatric surgery or bariatric endoscopy by recognizing surgeons who have additional surgical expertise and dedicate a significant percentage of their practice to the comprehensive care of these patients, including primary and revisional bariatric surgery, management of bariatric complications and endoscopy. The exam consists of about 150 multiple-choice questions designed to evaluate a surgeon's knowledge of metabolic and bariatric surgery principles and applied science. This is a one-day exam lasting approximately 4.5 hours and is held at computer-testing facilities across the u.s. Also, during the fiscal year 2022, the abs announced the move to a competency-based assessment of surgical trainees by introducing the abs entrustable professional activities (epa) project, expected to launch in july 2023 for general surgery residency programs. The abs volunteers began exploring epas as a potential foundation for competency-based surgical training and initial board certification in 2016, following several years of discussion around various strategies to improve traditional time-based residency training models. The abs then developed five index epas and piloted them at 28 diverse surgical residency programs from 2018-2020. With the onset of the covid-19 pandemic in early 2020, it became more apparent than ever that a move to competency-based assessment is necessary to appropriately determine trainee readiness to enter the abs certification process. Supported by pilot-informed best practice insights. The abs will collaborate with key surgical education partners and stakeholders nationwide to refine the lessons learned from the epa pilot experience into a full suite of approximately 18 epas representative of the core elements of general surgical practice. The epas will allow meaningful, frequent, and longitudinal assessment of individual resident performance and preparation for autonomous and competency-based practice. The abs will develop a mobile-based technology platform to allow for a time-efficient, feedback-oriented assessment of resident performance during the daily workflow. The ultimate goal of deploying epas is to create a habit of workplace-based micro-assessment and improvement-oriented performance feedback linked to core competencies and milestones that help fulfill every surgeon's commitment to honor the public trust. The abs aims to incorporate this strategy into a new paradigm for surgical training focused on educational outcomes, with a view to excellence and the highest standards in patient care. Epas are also in the early stages of development for the other abs specialties, including vascular surgery, pediatric surgery, complex general surgical oncology, and surgical critical care, with plans to introduce this trainee assessment model to those specialty programs in the coming years as well.”

“Other components of net periodic pension costs 2,702,084.”

“Audit committee is to oversee the selection of auditors and review of audited financial statements”