Conjoint versus separate boards

Abstract

Historically, the subspecialty of allergy and immunology was contained within the specialties of medicine or pediatrics. In 1971, the present conjoint board arrangement began. The movement to form a conjoint board at that time came primarily from allergy practitioners who were forced to see both adult and pediatric patients in their practices. They proposed that separate subspecialty training in adult allergy and pediatric allergy did not adequately prepare subspecialists for practice. What followed in the next nearly quarter century was the establishment of the American Board of Allergy and Immunology (ABAI), a conjoint board of the American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM) and the American Board of Pediatrics (ABP).