NBME BOARD MEETING TRANSCRIPT DECEMBER 1, 2001

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 1    8:30. 

 2              MS. HUG-ENGLISH:  All right.  I'm going to

 3   call the continuation of this meeting of the Nevada

 4   state board of medical examiners to order.  And we have

 5   a few things left on our agenda.  We were so efficient

 6   yesterday that we took care of a lot of things.  But I

 7   think that we'll start with item 15, which is

 8   consideration of the request by the Nevada state

 9   attorney general for requiring domestic violence

10   continuing education.  And do we have someone --

11              MR. LESLEY:  I don't know.

12              MS. HUG-ENGLISH:  Someone from that office? 

13   I'm from the Nevada network against domestic violence.

14              MS. HUG-ENGLISH:  Did you want to make a

15   couple comments?

16              UNIDENIFIED SPEAKER:  I came because I saw

17   the item was agendized.  I wanted to thank you, the

18   board, for taking the matter so seriously wanted to

19   clarify that that letter was not requesting that you

20   take any action on whether domestic violence training

21   should be required rather that the Attorney General's

22   office and the Nevada network against domestic violence

23   are looking for feedback from the Board on how best to

24   prioritize domestic violence training for physicians. 

25   So again rather than making it mandatory to ask you to

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 1   think about how that can be prioritized and how best to

 2   work with this.  That's all.

 3              MS. HUG-ENGLISH:  Any comments on the letter

 4   that we received? 

 5              MR. MATHIS:  Larry Mathis, Nevada state

 6   medical association.  We've been working with the

 7   domestic violence task force and with the Attorney

 8   General's office on actually right now there's a

 9   project that received some of the national funding to

10   develop clinical guidelines for use by physicians and

11   other health care professionals on integrating domestic

12   violence, screening procedures into practices, and I

13   expect we'll have that done I think in probably January

14   or February.  It's coming very close.  We have on the

15   Nevada state medical association Webb site updates

16   about the clinical issues on domestic violence, the

17   links.  There's a clinical guide for emergency

18   physicians that we have on there.  And we've also put

19   on C M E programs that encouraged all the C M

20   E providers to integrate that in the practice.  So I

21   think what the intent of this was was to bring in this

22   Board and the other licensing boards as these clinical

23   guidelines become more available as to how best to make

24   sure that all the physicians, nurses and others really

25   become aware of it and that screening for domestic

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 1   violence becomes just a natural part of taking

 2   histories in the appropriate practices and how for --

 3   how to rank that in C M Es rather than having a

 4   requirement that somebody C M Es in one area or

 5   another.  I think we're all pretty much on the same

 6   waiving length on that.

 7              MS. HUG-ENGLISH:  Thank you.  I think just

 8   to clarify in the letter that we received in the last

 9   paragraph, it does say we would like to know the

10   Board's position on requiring domestic violence

11   continuing education for its licensees.

12              So the letter is worded just a bit

13   differently than what I'm hearing from you all this

14   morning.  And so I guess I'd like to ask for comments

15   from board members.

16              MS. JONES:  I think that that's definitely

17   an issue that we need to be looking at and we have

18   been.  It's not that we haven't been up to this time. 

19   But perhaps in the ethics requirement that C M E could

20   be included in that area.

21              MS. HUG-ENGLISH:  I know Dr. Titus isn't

22   able to be here this morning but she did want it noted

23   also that although she was not supporting requiring or

24   making it an addition to continuing education

25   requirements, that she felt that it might be considered

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 1   part of the two credits of ethics, where that some

 2   domestic violence education could be substituted or

 3   incorporated in those two credit hours.

 4              MR. MONTOYA:  I'm an obstetrician

 5   gynecologist.  In my literature that I go through,

 6   there's a domestic violence articles every month in

 7   something.  And so there are a lot of literature out

 8   there.  I'm seeing there's a lot of advertising about

 9   awareness of domestic violence.  And I'm not sure that

10   mandating C M Es for domestic violence is necessarily

11   the way to go.  It's going to be a lot like this ethics

12   thing, which in my personal opinion has gotten to be a

13   joke after a while, because guys go sign in and bolt. 

14   And I think it's more a push for education, a push for

15   awareness and not just saying go to this lecture and

16   then we'll consider you aware.  I don't think that just

17   requiring C M E's is necessarily the way to go.

18              MS. HUG-ENGLISH:  Other comments?

19              I certainly agree with that.  I think that

20   each of us on the Board recognizes the importance of

21   domestic violence that it's a critical issue that we

22   need to be aware of and that we need to educate

23   physicians about.  I'm not sure that C M E is the way

24   to do it.  And I am happy to hear that there's some

25   things in the works that are providing information on

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 1   the web site, perhaps that can be extended to some

 2   little monograph or something that's sent to physicians

 3   and incorporated that way.  I think that certainly we

 4   all are aware of the importance of this issue.  But I'm

 5   not hearing from the Board members any willingness to

 6   incorporate that as an addition to our C M

 7   E requirements at this time.

 8              Dick or Larry, should we draft a response to

 9   this letter in some sort of form to the Attorney

10   General's office.

11              MR. LESLEY:  If you like.

12              MS. HUG-ENGLISH:  That would indicate that

13   we certainly value the importance of it, but that at

14   this time we don't feel that doing it in a C M E format

15   would be the best.  Is that what I'm hearing.

16              MS. KIRSCH:  I think that's appropriate.

17              MR. MONTOYA:  I can volunteer that the Clark

18   County OB/GYN society typically every year gives money

19   to something like the shade tree shelter or one of the

20   other type shelters to help out.  So the OB/GYN society

21   down in southern Nevada at least has a pretty good

22   awareness of the problem.  Maybe needs to spread to

23   some of the other disciplines.

24              MS. HUG-ENGLISH:  And I do think that it's

25   helpful for you to come and tell us what's happening in

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 1   other arenas too.  I think if other things come up with

 2   that that certainly this board would like to hear about

 3   it and I would see other avenues of perhaps doing

 4   something in our newsletter or something that would

 5   increase awareness as well.

 6              Any other comments about that?  Okay.  Then

 7   we can move on.  I believe the only item left on our

 8   agenda from last night was the diversion report, but I

 9   don't think Carolyn is here this morning.  I think that

10   report was passed out.  Does anybody have any questions

11   or comments about her report?

12              (No response.)

13              MS. HUG-ENGLISH:  Okay.  Then I think that

14   we can move on to our adjudications.  8:40.

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