Emergency physicians working in American College of Surgeons (ACS) Pediatric Surgery Centers no longer have a Pediatric Advanced Life Support (PALS) certification requirement. This is the result of the ACS removing the requirement from the recently published 2021 Optimal Resources for Children’s Surgical Care. Last year, the Emergency Medicine (EM) community partnered together across all EM organizations (Coalition on Medical Merit Badges) and requested that the ACS remove the PALS requirement for physicians certified by the American Board of Emergency Medicine (ABEM) or the American Osteopathic Board of Emergency Medicine (AOBEM), as their initial and continuing certification processes include robust, ongoing physician assessment in the practice of pediatric emergency care. ABEM President Marianne Gausche-Hill, M.D., provided testimony to the Children’s Surgical Verification Committee of the ACS about the dynamic requirements emergency physicians undertake to become and remain certified.
