Twenty-three scholars will receive financial awards for research in artificial intelligence, patient care, competency-based assessments, and physician burnout

CHICAGO, Sept. 14, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- The American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS) has selected a record number of 23 outstanding physicians to participate in its 2026-2027 Scholars Program™. Established in 2014, the one-year, part-time program supports early-career physicians and researchers in scholarship and leadership development focusing on initial and continuing board certification. Each ABMS Scholar receives a $15,000 financial award.

"The increasing number of applicants and grant recipients are clear indicators of the growing significance of research that addresses issues in board certification and physician assessment," said Greg Ogrinc, MD, MS, ABMS Senior Vice President, Certification Standards and Programs. "The work of these talented Scholars will generate new insights that will advance certification programs and improve patient care."

ABMS Scholars are selected based on the quality of their proposed research project, the relevance of their research to the ABMS mission and the certification community, and the ability to make considerable progress on the research project during the scholar year. Program participants remain at their home institutions, collaborate with self-selected mentors, and participate in monthly virtual sessions with research project overviews and updates to peers, research mentors, co-sponsoring Member Board leaders, subject matter experts, and ABMS Scholar alumni.

This ABMS Scholars cohort will begin in September 2026, and their term will culminate at the ABMS Conference 2027, when they will present their research findings before a national audience.

The 2026-2027 ABMS Scholars co-sponsors include the ABMS Research and Education Foundation (ABMS-REF) and the following ABMS Member Boards: Allergy and Immunology, Anesthesiology, Dermatology, Emergency Medicine, Internal Medicine (Foundation), Medical Genetics and Genomics, Ophthalmology, Orthopaedic Surgery, Pathology, Pediatrics, Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Radiology, Surgery, and Urology.

The following are the 2026-2027 ABMS Scholars and their co-sponsoring organizations:

American Board of Medical Specialties Research and Education Foundation (ABMS—REF)

• Erin Finn, MD – University of North Carolina
  
  Project: Developing and Validating a Competency-Based Assessment Tool for Point-of-Care Ultrasound (POCUS) in Heart Failure: The Modified CLUE Clinical Evaluation Exercise (mCLUE-CEX)
  
  
  
  
• Sadia Ilyas, MD – University of California San Diego
  
  Project: Burden or Meaning? The Structural Features of Quality Improvement
  
  Participation that Shape Physician Well-Being and Sustained Engagement
  
  
  
  
• Adam Johnson, MD, MPH – Duke University School of Medicine
  
  Project: Empowering Clinicians to Evaluate Local Patient-Centered Outcomes in Chronic Limb-Threatening Ischemia Using Electronic Health Record Data
  
  
  
  
• Hyunjoo Ko, MD – Mount Sinai Hospital
  
  Project: AI-Administered Constructed-Response Assessment of Clinical Reasoning in Anesthesiology

American Board of Allergy and Immunology

• Sydney O'Malley, MD – Mayo Clinic
  
  Project: The Allergist/Immunologist Workforce and Health Equity: Geographic Distribution and Specialist Shortages Across Socioeconomic Strata in the United States

American Board of Anesthesiology

• Morgan Graves, MD – Mayo Clinic
  
  Project: Using Failure to Achieve Planned Same-Day Discharge to Develop Competency-Based Perioperative Assessment: An EHR-Derived Case-Finding Framework

American Board of Dermatology

• Elizabeth Bailey, MD, MPH – Stanford University School of Medicine
  
  Project: Development of Entrustable Professional Activities for Dermatology Residency
  
  
  
  
• Drew Saylor, MD, MPH, FAAD, FACMS – University of California San Francisco
  
  Project: Pathology Concordance as a Competency Milestone: Developing a Concordance Assessment Tool and EPA Framework for Frozen Section Interpretation in Mohs Surgery Fellowship

American Board of Emergency Medicine

• The J. David Barry, MD Scholar is Destiny Folk, MD – Indiana University School of Medicine
  
  Project: A National Evaluation of Burnout, Mistreatment, and In-Training Examination Performance Among Emergency Medicine Residents

American Board of Internal Medicine (Foundation)

• Carl Drake, MD, MPH, MHPE – Cedars-Sinai Medical Center
  
  Project: From Practice to Performance: Leveraging the EHR to Explore Associations Between Medicine Residents' Clinical Experiences and Certification Outcomes

American Board of Medical Genetics and Genomics

• Annie Niehaus, MD – Stanford University School of Medicine
  
  Project: Development of a real-time assessment framework and feedback platform for medical genetics and genomics (MGG) residency and fellowship programs based on entrustable professional activities (EPAs)

American Board of Ophthalmology

• Amy Zhang, MD – University of Michigan
  
  Project: Initial Certification Timing, Pass Rate and Preparation Experiences in Ophthalmology Board Certification

American Board of Orthopaedic Surgery

• Tanio Dagher, MD – Johns Hopkins Hospital
  
  Project: Assessing Orthopaedic Residents as Teachers: Development and Validation of an Instrument for Evaluating Intraoperative Teaching Skills

American Board of Pathology

• Robert Christian, MD – Oregon Health & Science University
  
  Project: Feasibility and Efficacy Study of a Competency-Based Hospital Autopsy Assessment Tool

American Board of Pediatrics

• Georgina Pike Clegg, MD – University of Michigan
  
  Project: Understanding Resident Experience with Workplace-Based Assessment Applications

American Board of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation

• Zachary Carter, MD – Duke University School of Medicine
  
  Project: Advance-Spine: An Interdisciplinary Value-Based Curriculum to Train Physicians to Implement Biopsychosocial Care Models

American Board of Radiology

• Warren Campbell IV, MD, PhD – University of Virginia Medical Center
  
  Project: Quantifying Diagnostic Excellence: Utilizing AI Consensus Models on Trainee Preliminary Reports to Optimize Diagnostic Quality and Clinical Feedback for Radiology Residents
  
  
  
  
• Kofi Deh, PhD, DABR – Howard University
  
  Project: Measuring What Certification Misses: AI-Assisted Clinical Reasoning Assessment and Opportunity Analysis in Medical Physics Residency Training
  
  
  
  
• Mary Mahoney, MD – Fox Chase Cancer Center
  
  Project: Building Radiation Oncology Resident Confidence and Competency with a Comprehensive Transition to Practice Rotation
  
  
  
  
• Daniel Veyg, DO – Northwell Health North Shore University Hospital
  
  Project: Development and Validation of an AI-Driven Adaptive Curriculum for Interventional Radiology Residency: A Competency-Based Approach to Personalized IR Education

American Board of Surgery

• Jacob Reich, MD – Intraoperative Performance Analytics Laboratory - Lenox Hill Hospital
  
  Project: Measuring Surgical Performance Improvement Using OPI-based Scoring Before and After Robotic Simulation Exercises
  
  
  
  
• Phillip Jenkins, MD – Oregon Health & Science University
  
  Project: Operationalizing Surgical Informatics Training: Competency Framework Development and Dual-Certification Pathway Evaluation at a Single Academic Center

American Board of Urology

• Robert Wang, MD – Massachusetts General Brigham
  
  Project: Aligning Core Urology EPAs with Real-World Training and Practice Patterns

About ABMS 

Established in 1933, the American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS) is responsible for the creation of standards overseeing physician certification in the United States. Dedicated to improving the quality of care to the patients, families and communities they serve, the 24 ABMS Member Boards develop educational and professional standards and programs of assessment to certify physicians and medical specialists. More than one million physicians and medical specialists are certified by one or more of the ABMS Member Boards in one or more of 38 specialties and 89 subspecialties. For more information about ABMS, abms.org or call (312) 436-2600. 

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SOURCE American Board of Medical Specialties