International Board of Medicine and Surgery

Last updated October 05, 2019

The International Board of Medicine and Surgery (IBMS) is an international professional association, established in 2001 and headquartered in Palm Harbor, Florida, that serves as the authority for certifying the credentials and the professionalism of physicians, surgeons, and dentists across all territories and jurisdictions of the world.

A professional association seeks to further a particular profession, the interests of individuals engaged in that profession and the public interest. In the United States, such an association is typically a nonprofit organization for tax purposes.

Florida is the southernmost contiguous state in the United States. The state is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, and to the south by the Straits of Florida. Florida is the 22nd-most extensive, the 3rd-most populous, and the 8th-most densely populated of the U.S. states. Jacksonville is the most populous municipality in the state and the largest city by area in the contiguous United States. The Miami metropolitan area is Florida's most populous urban area. Tallahassee is the state's capital.

A physician, medical practitioner, medical doctor, or simply doctor, is a professional who practises medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining, or restoring health through the study, diagnosis, prognosis and treatment of disease, injury, and other physical and mental impairments. Physicians may focus their practice on certain disease categories, types of patients, and methods of treatment—known as specialities—or they may assume responsibility for the provision of continuing and comprehensive medical care to individuals, families, and communities—known as general practice. Medical practice properly requires both a detailed knowledge of the academic disciplines, such as anatomy and physiology, underlying diseases and their treatment—the science of medicine—and also a decent competence in its applied practice—the art or craft of medicine.

Mission

The purpose of IBMS is to promote patient safety and professional integrity and to facilitate medical tourism with information that traveling patients need to make informed choices for their healthcare needs.

Patient safety is a discipline and responsibility that emphasizes safety in health care through the prevention, reduction, reporting, and analysis of medical error that often leads to adverse effects. The frequency and magnitude of avoidable adverse events experienced by patients was not well known until the 1990s, when multiple countries reported staggering numbers of patients harmed and killed by medical errors. Recognizing that healthcare errors impact 1 in every 10 patients around the world, the World Health Organization calls patient safety an endemic concern. Indeed, patient safety has emerged as a distinct healthcare discipline supported by an immature yet developing scientific framework. There is a significant transdisciplinary body of theoretical and research literature that informs the science of patient safety. At the same time, efforts are being made to anchor patient safety more firmly in medical education. The resulting patient safety knowledge continually informs improvement efforts such as: applying lessons learned from business and industry, adopting innovative technologies, educating providers and consumers, enhancing error reporting systems, and developing new economic incentives.

Medical tourism refers to people traveling abroad to obtain medical treatment. In the past, this usually referred to those who traveled from less-developed countries to major medical centers in highly developed countries for treatment unavailable at home. However, in recent years it may equally refer to those from developed countries who travel to developing countries for lower-priced medical treatments. The motivation may be also for medical services unavailable or non-licensed in the home country: There are differences between the medical agencies world-wide, whether a drug is approved in their country or not. Even within Europe, although therapy protocols might be approved by the European Medical Agency (EMA), several countries have their own review organizations in order to evaluate whether the same therapy protocol would be "cost-effective", so that patients face differences in the therapy protocols, particularly in the access of these drugs, which might be partially explained by the financial strength of the particular Health System.

Overview

Professional credentials are generally issued by the authority of governmental entities and by the authority of specific professional disciplines. The requirements of these authorities vary somewhat from country to country and from group to group. With the advent of medical tourism, prospective patients have encountered some difficulty in identifying homologous credentials across the world's jurisdictions. To address this confusion, the International Board of Medicine and Surgery (IBMS) applies the requirements and procedures used by public health departments in the United States to effect a standardized certification of medical, surgical, and dental professionals worldwide.

Public health has been defined as "the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life and promoting human health through organized efforts and informed choices of society, organizations, public and private, communities and individuals". Analyzing the health of a population and the threats it faces is the basis for public health. The public can be as small as a handful of people or as large as a village or an entire city; in the case of a pandemic it may encompass several continents. The concept of health takes into account physical, psychological and social well-being. As such, according to the World Health Organization, it is not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.

The United States of America (USA), commonly known as the United States or America, is a country comprising 50 states, a federal district, five major self-governing territories, and various possessions. At 3.8 million square miles, the United States is the world's third or fourth largest country by total area and is slightly smaller than the entire continent of Europe. With a population of over 327 million people, the U.S. is the third most populous country. The capital is Washington, D.C., and the most populous city is New York City. Most of the country is located contiguously in North America between Canada and Mexico.

IBMS respects the procedures controlling professional credentials in each jurisdiction and it confirms that each professional member of IBMS has received the appropriate credentials. Homologation of those credentials is effected by ensuring that all professional members of IBMS, regardless of jurisdiction, subscribe to the same international standards of medical treatment and code of ethics.

IBMS's international standards of medical treatment stipulate that:

A therapy or medicaltreatment is the attempted remediation of a health problem, usually following a diagnosis.

the patient will receive adequate linguistic translation;
the patient will receive communication from appropriate medical personnel both before and after each procedure and will receive any appropriate medical records in the patient's own language;
the patient will be informed of any pertinent screening criteria;
the patient will be informed in detail of any procedure meant to address anticipated complications of their proposed medical, surgical, and/or dental procedures;
the treatment facilities complies with adequate infection-control standards that include the disposal of biohazardous waste and used needles;
the treatment facilities contain a recovery center in a sanitary setting and that is managed by medically competent personnel;
the patient be indemnified financially in the event complications arise subsequent to a medical, surgical, or dental procedure and upon returning to the home country.

The terms medical record, health record, and medical chart are used somewhat interchangeably to describe the systematic documentation of a single patient's medical history and care across time within one particular health care provider's jurisdiction. The medical record includes a variety of types of "notes" entered over time by health care professionals, recording observations and administration of drugs and therapies, orders for the administration of drugs and therapies, test results, x-rays, reports, etc. The maintenance of complete and accurate medical records is a requirement of health care providers and is generally enforced as a licensing or certification prerequisite.

A complication in medicine, or medical complication, is an unfavorable result of a disease, health condition, or treatment. Complications may adversely affect the prognosis, or outcome, of a disease. Complications generally involve a worsening in severity of disease or the development of new signs, symptoms, or pathological changes which may become widespread throughout the body and affect other organ systems. Thus, complications may lead to the development of new diseases resulting from a previously existing disease. Complications may also arise as a result of various treatments.

Infection control is the discipline concerned with preventing nosocomial or healthcare-associated infection, a practical sub-discipline of epidemiology. It is an essential, though often underrecognized and undersupported, part of the infrastructure of health care. Infection control and hospital epidemiology are akin to public health practice, practiced within the confines of a particular health-care delivery system rather than directed at society as a whole. Anti-infective agents include antibiotics, antibacterials, antifungals, antivirals and antiprotozoals.

IBMS's code of ethics stipulates that each professional member shall:

maintain the highest standard of personal conduct and professional excellence and adhere to the International Code of Medical Ethics;^[1]
uphold the laws and regulations pertinent to the practice of medicine;
provide patient care impartially, without regard to race, color, creed, sex, national origin, handicap, and sexual orientation;
promote the quality of medical care by communicating in a professional manner and by maintaining the confidentiality of each patient.

Certification with IBMS is voluntary and is graduated into five levels. All levels require that the member acknowledge IBMS's international standards of medical treatment and IBMS's code of ethics. With each higher level, the professional member produces increasingly more credible evidence demonstrating that he or she can be counted on to adhere to those standards.

Level 1 ("entry") certification is granted upon self-reporting one's licenses, specialty certifications, and hospital affiliations.
Level 2 ("silver") certification is granted when IBMS receives notarized copies or third-party verification of the documentation required for Level 1.
Level 3 ("gold") certification is granted with the addition of evidence of professional distinction (such as publications in professional journals or professorships) and evidence of financial indemnification in the event a complication should arise from a procedure after the patient has returned home.
Level 4 ("ruby") certification is granted with the addition of evidence that the candidate has completed at least five years of professional distinction within their specialization.
Level 5 ("emerald") certification is granted by acclamation of the IBMS Medical Advisory Board. The board looks for an established record of safety and efficacy, demonstrated leadership in the candidate's field, and recognition by a professional association at the national or international level.

Advocacy

By means of its graduated certification and its conferences, IBMS encourages its members to pursue continuing education and continual improvement. For the patients of its members, IBMS will act as an impartial intermediary to correct any dissatisfaction with the professional services.

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References

↑ "International Code of Medical Ethics". Archived from the original on 2012-08-25. Retrieved 2012-10-18.

External links

International Board of Medicine and Surgery official website

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[1] "International Code of Medical Ethics". Archived from the original on 2012-08-25. Retrieved 2012-10-18.