Current Practice Focus Trends in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation

Background

Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation (PM&R) is a diverse specialty, growing and evolving over a variety of subspecialty and practice focus areas. Accurate data regarding practice patterns of physiatrists is essential for updating requirements in training and certification, particularly as the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) begins its process to update of the PM&R core residency training requirements. This study analyzes practice trends for nearly 98% of physiatrists in active practice, the largest study to date.

Objective

To update current demographics of physicians specializing in PM&R, including current areas of practice focus, to analyze the alignment of practice focus with subspecialty certification, and to determine the extent that electromyography is a component of current physiatric practice.

Design

Retrospective analysis of deidentified responses from American Board of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation (ABPMR) board‐certified PM&R physicians (diplomates) on annual enrollment in the ABPMR Continuing Certification program.

Participants

9,543 ABPMR diplomates

Main Outcome Measures

Demographics – age, gender, years in practice, practice setting(s) and area(s)

Practice focus, subspecialty certifications

Results

The majority of practicing physiatrists are men (62%) although the percentage of women in the field is growing (38%). Nearly 80% of physiatrists report more than one practice focus area, with Pain Medicine and Sports Medicine/Musculoskeletal practices most commonly reported.

Conclusions

This study confirms the growth trends in PM&R in pain and sports medicine but also highlights the substantial number of physiatrists focusing their practices in areas related to neurorehabilitation and medical rehabilitation. The large majority of physiatrists incorporate multiple focus areas into their practices. Electromyography is a focus for a declining percent of practicing physiatrists.

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