Assessment of specialists in cardiovascular practice.

Assessment of medical specialists was introduced to ensure patient safety and to maintain professional knowledge. Cardiovascular specialist assessment is challenging, as the ongoing development of new technologies is associated with increased requirements for up-to-date training and acquisition of new skills. The cardiovascular specialties include cardiology, vascular interventional radiology, cardiac surgery and vascular surgery. Assessment within these disciplines involves evaluation of knowledge in addition to technical and nontechnical skills, a process that is termed recertification or maintenance of certification. Increasingly, there is a demand for professional accountability through recertification because of concerns about professional negligence and increased awareness of medical errors. In this article we describe the process of recertification in different geographical regions and discuss the role of current tools used to recertify cardiovascular specialists and, in particular, how their use can contribute to the requirements of patient care.