News

The schedule for ACC.20/WCC Virtual is now available, providing free access to live educations sessions that include Late-Breaking Clinical Trials, Featured Clinical Research, Young Investigator Awards, Keynotes, and more. In addition to the live education, ACC.20/WCC Virtual also includes Video on Demand, Abstracts on Demand, and Slides on Demand with highlights from across 10 clinical learning pathways. Learn more and view the entire schedule. Additionally, ACC understands that many of its members and cardiovascular professionals around the globe may be unable to attend and access ACC.20/WCC Virtual during “live” education sessions from March 28 – 30. As such, the content will be available on demand for 90 days beyond the release of the Virtual experience. Pre-registration will not be required. Learn more in the updated FAQ here.

After careful consideration, the College has made the difficult decision to cancel ACC.20 Together With the World Congress of Cardiology (ACC.20/WCC) – scheduled for March 28 – 30 in Chicago, IL. “The health, safety and well-being of our members, staff, exhibitors, faculty and other stakeholders is of paramount importance,” said ACC President Richard J. Kovacs, MD, FACC. “With an ever-increasing number of ACC members on the front lines of preparing and reacting to the COVID-19 outbreak, it is in the best interest of everyone to cancel the meeting and ensure our members are able to do what they do best – help and heal.” Look for more details in the coming days regarding virtual plans for delivering elements of the ACC.20/WCC program, as well as refund processes and options. Read the initial FAQ document to help with answering travel, refund, embargo and other questions. 

The American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM) has announced plans to offer a new Maintenance of Certification (MOC) assessment option beginning in January 2018. Under the new option, physicians who “engage in and perform well” on shorter assessments would have the option to test out of the current 10-year exam. The 10-year exam, however, will also remain available as a second option. According to ABIM, this new option will be available for physicians maintaining certification in internal medicine, and, possibly, one or two subspecialties starting in January 2018. Based on feedback from these early adopters, ABIM expects to make this option available to additional subspecialties as quickly as possible over subsequent program cycles. The ABIM expects to provide more specific details about the alternative assessment option no later than Dec. 31, 2016. In the meantime, physicians with certifications that expire before the new assessment option is offered in their specialty will still need to take and pass the 10-year exam in order to maintain their certification. Finding an alternative to the 10-year examination has been one of the top MOC goals of the ACC and the rest of the internal medicine community. “MOC continues to rank among the top concerns of our internal medicine members, with the 10-year examination being the largest obstacle,” says ACC President Richard A. Chazal, MD, FACC. “We applaud ABIM’s move in the direction of more flexibility in MOC requirements; however, we will need more details to see how it aligns with the ACC’s proposal.”  Read more. 

The cover story of the latest issue of CardioSource WorldNews examines how doctors can use social media to inform and connect with patients. In this month’s Editor’s Corner, Alfred A. Bove, MD, PhD, MACC, discusses his concerns surrounding this topic while in the Straight Talk column, Andrew M. Freeman, MD, FACC,  writes that it is time for the medical community to figure out how to best use social media. See the full issue, including an overview of MACRA and  a feature on digital health technology, at ACC.org/CSWN. 

More than two years after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) proposed a rule to extend its authority to cover unregulated tobacco products, a final regulation has been released. The FDA now has control over all tobacco products, including e-cigarettes, cigars, hookah tobacco and pipe tobacco, and will ban sales of these products to anyone under 18 years of age. The FDA will also “evaluate important factors such as ingredients, product design and health risks, as well as their appeal to youth and non-users” for all products in these categories commercially marketed after Feb. 15, 2007. Until now, there was no federal oversight of the manufacture, distribution or marketing of e-cigarettes, cigars and other tobacco products, and no restrictions in place to protect public health against the risks of these products. “Marketing tobacco products, especially e-cigarettes, to children would slow the progress we’ve made in reducing heart disease brought about by the decline of smoking in the U.S.,” said ACC President-Elect Mary Norine Walsh, MD, FACC. “The FDA’s decision to restrict the sale of all tobacco products is a significant step forward.” Read more.