“Squatting Under the Table Feeding Them Answers”: In Conversation With Mike Yunes of the ABR

The Accelerators (Drs. Matt Spraker and Simul Parikh) host new Associate Executive Director for Radiation Oncology at The American Board of Radiology (ABR), Dr. Michael Yunes! 

Mike is a community radiation oncologist in Springfield, MA and long time volunteer for the ABR. The transition to his leadership comes after a turbulent period for the Rad Onc board. Communication around the 2018 score anomalies dragged trainee confidence in the ABR to new lows and, soon after, COVID forced the board to complete a rapid redesign of testing. 

More than 5 years later, there are exciting signals of change. The "Orals 2.0" platform seems very well received by examiners and examinees and the board has voted to ramp up the clinical relevance of the qualifying exams in Rad Onc.

Most importantly, Mike is all about transparency and communication. His door is always open, so we invited ourselves in and recorded a podcast. 

We discuss all things Initial Cert: the successful move to virtual oral boards, the written boards and clinical relevance, Angoff'ing, and "crisis management" and communication. 

We close the episode with Simul's lightning round.  Lobster, wine, informatics, 3D printing for benign radiotherapy, Mike's got hobbies!

We hope you enjoy what we hope is the first of many fruitful conversations. 

Physician training and evaluation is a topic near and dear to our hearts; here are some prior episodes from our group related to the ABR.

• TAP, Beckta interviews Matt about boards
• Out.Of.The.Basement, Beckta covers the contentious 2018 ABR initial certification results

Here are some other resources discussed in the episode:

• Beriwal et al., Interdisciplinary debate on the physics test content
• Golden, United States Radiation Oncology Curriculum Development: The Tail is Wagging the Dog
• Warwzuta et al., The rise of negative portrayals of radiation oncology: A textual analysis of media news
• Chimney Rock Winery, a Yunes' family favorite
• See Mike's blog in ABR The Beam

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