#436 - The ABP Just Proposed a Two-Year Neonatology Fellowship. Now What?

Breaking news from the American Board of Pediatrics: a proposal to move all 15 pediatric subspecialties to a two-year, competency-based training model by July 2028 just dropped, and Ben and Daphna are breaking it down in real time. What does shifting from time-based to EPA-grounded training mean for neonatology fellows? Is two years actually enough? What happens to scholarship, research exposure, and the physician-scientist pipeline? And should neonatology take this reshuffling of the cards as an opportunity to chart its own course entirely? This is essential listening for fellows, program directors, and anyone who cares about the future of our workforce.

Find the article discussed today here:

https://www.abp.org/news/press-release/ensuring-readiness-practice-advancing-competency-based-subspecialty-training

The trasncript for today's show can be found below:

Benjamin Courchia, MD (00:00.59) Hello everybody, welcome back to The Incubator Podcast. We're back today for what I'm calling an emergency podcast.

Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (00:06.008) I think it's a little extreme to call it an emergency podcast. It's an emergency for us. It's not an emergency yet for the community. We'll see if it becomes one. I don't think so either. So it's a breaking news podcast.

Benjamin Courchia, MD (00:08.492) It's not an emergency.

Benjamin Courchia, MD (00:15.438) I don't think so. I don't think so.

Benjamin Courchia, MD (00:22.902) It's a breaking news podcast. You're absolutely right about that. So we're recording this.

Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (00:26.986) It was even a little anxiety-provoking for me to see it on the calendar that we had an "emergency." All right. So tell people what is the breaking news?

Benjamin Courchia, MD (00:34.51) Yeah, so we're recording this the day before we're traveling for PAS. The news is that the American Board of Pediatrics, the ABP, released a statement on Thursday of last week called "Ensuring Readiness for Practice: Advancing Competency-Based Subspecialty Training." We'll get through that memo in detail.

But the bottom line is that the ABP is considering moving towards two-year specialty training for pediatric subspecialties beginning July 2028. Boom, there you have it. We need to talk a little bit about what that means. That's the punchline. We'll get to the details. I just want to give a shout-out to Matt Harrell, who basically

Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (01:14.306) Boom. That's the punchline.

Benjamin Courchia, MD (01:32.128) also sent us an email about that. Thank you, Matt, for making sure this gets out. Okay. So the memo really begins with the idea that up until now, the determinant for competency has been the completion of subspecialty training, and that is something measured by time.

Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (01:36.792) Making sure we knew.

Benjamin Courchia, MD (02:00.93) And I think this is something that's going to frame the entire process here — the idea that we should stop measuring things in terms of time and instead focus more on how we can guarantee that trainees have a readiness for unsupervised clinical practice, as they say. That is already a contentious statement, because some people might say, per the Malcolm Gladwell argument, that 10,000 hours of

Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (02:20.056) Okay.

Agreed.

Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (02:29.858) That's right.

Benjamin Courchia, MD (02:29.97) something leads you to expertise. So time definitely is a component.

Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (02:33.528) Or, for example, our colleagues who've already practiced in other countries — can they do it in a year if it's competency-based? Could they be done in six months if it's their second time through? Could you be done in 18 months? Or would a program have to allow someone who wasn't ready at two years to go to two and a half? I don't know. If it's truly competency-based.

Benjamin Courchia, MD (02:46.732) Yeah.

That's right.

Benjamin Courchia, MD (02:53.592) That's right.

Benjamin Courchia, MD (02:58.742) Obviously, the statement they've released is an introduction. The plan moving forward — and we'll get to that — is that there should be ongoing conversations. People are invited to participate. So we'll see. It's a great question you're raising. They mention that there's been an ongoing push to shorten subspecialty training, and that this has often been tied, they say, to workforce considerations, which I think is a great umbrella term for all the problems we have. And I think this is the first point in the show where I want to make a clarification. We're going to talk about ourselves, right? We're going to focus on the NICU here. But obviously, this affects peds endocrinology, peds rheumatology, peds adolescent medicine, peds developmental and behavioral pediatrics.

Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (03:29.312) Yeah, all the chaos.

Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (03:41.248) Yeah.

Benjamin Courchia, MD (03:51.5) It is true.

Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (03:51.884) Well, and I think, for all the subspecialties — but especially some of the ones you mentioned that aren't neonatology — the workforce situation is really a threat.

Benjamin Courchia, MD (04:01.422) Yeah, that's what I was going to say. There have been publications — and I'm not saying this to vent — but publications referenced commonly by Dr. Satyan, pointing out that training in these specialties is a bad financial decision, irrespective of the philosophical angle. If you love pediatric endocrinology, great for you. That's not what we're arguing. But if you're looking at this purely from a financial perspective, it is

Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (04:22.552) for sure.

Benjamin Courchia, MD (04:30.118) more beneficial for somebody to stop at three years of general pediatrics training and go into practice rather than pursue the additional three years. And I do believe that

Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (04:39.412) at a fellow's pay versus making an attending pay, as an investment.

Benjamin Courchia, MD (04:41.708) at a fellow's pay, plus the pay as an attending afterwards. And I think this can feel uncomfortable to talk about. For people in my position, there are very real financial realities. If you did not grow up with wealth or don't have a lot of savings, these are strong considerations. I hate

Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (04:47.49) Correct. Yeah.

Benjamin Courchia, MD (05:08.664) to sound dismissive and say that money shouldn't be the motivator. But at the end of the day, there are people who have bills to pay and who don't have parents, uncles, or family members to back them up. That is a very real thing. And so, in response to all of this, the American Board of Pediatrics Board of Directors has approved a model that will serve as the foundation for moving pediatric subspecialty training towards a competency-based approach grounded in Entrustable Professional Activities, EPAs.

Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (05:18.264) 100%.

Benjamin Courchia, MD (05:37.366) I'm currently doing hemodynamics training, so I know what EPAs are, and they're not new. They are a modality that has been out there, evidence-based, to assess competency. And the model creates a two-year clinically oriented pathway. That's the gist of it. I think

Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (05:41.24) And the EPAs are not new. They're not new.

Benjamin Courchia, MD (06:09.71) we can get into a bit more of the details. One of the things mentioned is that they'd like to shift from an exclusively time-based approach to one grounded in competency. I think that alone could be a problem, number one. And the reason I'm saying this is that the feedback I hear from trainees is that these days,

Even with three years — and I'm not defending the three-year model; we'll discuss what this represents — it is still quite difficult to get enough intubations. Some people graduate having never seen an exchange transfusion. So I do believe that by simply reducing the time component, you make it more difficult to access these...

Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (06:49.782) Yeah.

Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (06:53.176) For sure. Go ahead.

Benjamin Courchia, MD (07:04.14) what have now become quite rare events. We don't intubate every baby. We don't do exchange transfusions that frequently because bilirubin thresholds are now much higher. So on the one hand, I get it, but on the other hand — what if it takes five years to accumulate those competencies?

Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (07:20.396) That's the thing. In March of last year, Pediatrics — the AAP publication — published an article entitled "Many Pediatric Subspecialty Fellows Are Not Ready to Graduate from Fellowship in Two Years." The lead author, Sarah Pitts, served on the competency committee for the last year. Let me give you more details — I have it pulled up.

They said Clinical Competency Committees, or CCCs, reported ratings for 1,538 second-year and 1,505 third-year fellows. Fewer than 50% of fellows met the clinical EPA supervision level thresholds for graduation after two years of training, increasing to 86% to 100% at three years. But to your point, not everyone is ready even at the three-year mark.

Benjamin Courchia, MD (08:11.266) Well, I think that's interesting. Did you feel ready to take on an attending role at the end of your second year of fellowship? For me, if you'd asked me then, I would have been cocky and said yes. In retrospect, I was not ready. To be perfectly frank, I'd say by November or December of my third year I felt okay. And I would say the last six months of fellowship,

Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (08:20.129) Okay.

Benjamin Courchia, MD (08:39.766) I felt like I was grinding my gears a bit, and maybe I wished there was more for me to do. But two years — that seemed like a stretch to me, and I was in a clinically heavy program.

Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (08:48.536) Yeah, clinically heavy. Well, to your point, fellow self-assessment aligned very well with the CCC ratings — they didn't think they were ready either. And fellowship program directors reported that 64 to 68% of fellows across subspecialties met the scholarship EPA's supervision level threshold for graduation after two years, compared with 99 to 100% at three years. However...

If you knew you only had two years, your question is an interesting one. If we knew we had three years, maybe we weren't ready because we knew we had three years. If we knew we only had two, maybe we would feel more ready. And this isn't saying, let's just make it two years. It's saying, let's make sure everybody gets the clinical rotations they need versus some of the scholarship rotations

Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (09:42.969) in two years versus three. So maybe we will be ready at two. There's a commentary to the 2025 article, and that's really the point — maybe we could do two years, but it's going to require a lot of curriculum renovation. Dr. Schumacher's commentary says we need historic investment in fellowship redesign to achieve workforce goals, especially.

Benjamin Courchia, MD (10:02.924) Yeah, and so.

Benjamin Courchia, MD (10:10.572) And so this is where there may be an opportunity. In the article that came out, the overview of the model mentions that it will include two pathways for all 15 subspecialties. One is what they call a clinically oriented pathway, in which fellows who demonstrate readiness for practice complete training in two years. Then there's an optional third year that may be offered at the discretion of the program for scholarship, research, or advanced training. I think that for

Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (10:25.336) Mm-hmm.

Benjamin Courchia, MD (10:38.422) for us in neonatology, it's going to be interesting to see what programs do. My brother went to dental school, and some programs are three years, some are four years. I still don't fully understand what drives that difference. But will it be

Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (10:48.77) Mm-hmm.

Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (10:54.038) Mm-hmm. Well, and yeah. You go ahead.

Benjamin Courchia, MD (11:00.268) Will it be like this in neonatology fellowship, where that program is two years and this one is three? I think programs will do this with deliberation and say, here's why we feel you need the third year, and they will have to fill that year with scholarly activity, research, or advanced training. What I think is very interesting is that we've had this burgeoning of

Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (11:05.59) Different programs, depending on your long-term goals.

Benjamin Courchia, MD (11:30.28) neonatal subspecialties — neonatal palliative care, neonatal follow-up, neonatal hemodynamics. And this could be a great opportunity to include those in training and make them part of that third year. If the requirements for rotations are a bit less heavy, we could now incorporate, say, the hemodynamics fellowship — which is one year — baked into your three years. So you do three years, but your neonatal perinatal medicine training

Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (11:32.728) Mm-hmm.

Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (11:43.978) in that third year.

Yeah.

Benjamin Courchia, MD (11:59.662) plus hemodynamics, or neonatal palliative care, or whatever other fellowship — I think this would be a great opportunity to take advantage of that third year. Rather than having it take five years after training, as it does for me right now — after three years of fellowship, I still have to do two years of hemodynamics because I'm doing it remotely. That's a long time.

Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (12:06.168) Mm-hmm.

Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (12:27.705) I totally agree with you. And you and I are full-time clinicians. I imagine our colleagues at the bench are grinding their teeth, because I think some people don't know they're interested in research until they really get into it. Not having been exposed to that has the potential

Benjamin Courchia, MD (12:39.168) Yeah. Yeah.

Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (12:55.609) to stagnate some of our scientific discovery.

Benjamin Courchia, MD (12:57.334) Yeah. Key features of the model: point number two — no required scholarly work product for certification and no minimum scholarship time requirements. I think this is a very big deal, because scholarly work has been a staple of training. You do research even if you don't really want to pursue that path long-term. But there are things you learn that are helpful for the rest of your career. I want to give credit to Dr.

Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (13:00.985) Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (13:07.735) Yeah.

Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (13:21.815) Mm-hmm.

Benjamin Courchia, MD (13:27.39) Karen Young, in whose lab I worked for stem cell research. It wasn't really my thing — I didn't want to work with mice and rat pups. But some of what I learned there, I still remember to this day. It helps me understand when we have a Delphi speaker like Bernard Thébaud come to talk about stem cells. All that background is genuinely helpful. So this isn't just about the scientific process.

Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (13:53.241) Well, it is the scientific process, right? Having to write the article and learn about the statistics — does it help you understand articles when you read them as a clinician? Yeah, I think it does.

Benjamin Courchia, MD (14:06.176) Yeah. And it's also an opportunity to find out whether this is something you're actually interested in. For example, I really wanted to match at the University of Miami because of their stem cell research program. I thought I was going to fall in love with stem cells. In theory, it's fascinating. In practice, I wasn't really cut out for clocking hours in the lab. I preferred more clinical follow-up research.

Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (14:21.379) idea.

Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (14:35.213) But we've interviewed so many people who said, well, I got into a lab and it became my life's work.

Benjamin Courchia, MD (14:41.07) Yeah. And you won't find that out unless you actually try it. I'm worried about the people who might have this lingering feeling later on — who used the two-year program as an easy path through fellowship, always had some interest in bench research, and never discovered it. Once you take that two-year clinical path, the obstacles to getting back into a

Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (14:45.12) Yeah.

Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (15:00.963) Mm.

Benjamin Courchia, MD (15:10.174) physician-scientist career won't be impossible, but it will be hard.

Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (15:10.819) Yeah.

Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (15:15.863) Yeah, it will be harder. Spending an extra year will be harder.

Benjamin Courchia, MD (15:20.984) Yeah. As an attending trained purely clinically, you might have to take a year off, do a master's, and start clocking research hours before you can apply. You're not going to walk into Boston Children's or a national division saying, "I want to do research," with nothing to show for it. It's going to require

Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (15:33.305) Mm-hmm.

Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (15:46.765) That's right. Or having to do some of those research elements during what is already a really clinically intensive two years — that's a big lift. Not impossible; plenty of people do it in the three-year model already. But it's a big lift. All right, what are the other key features we should discuss?

Benjamin Courchia, MD (15:58.817) Yeah.

Benjamin Courchia, MD (16:06.752) I agree.

So they mentioned a few things that are quite reassuring. There'll be a continued emphasis on education and assessment of scholarship through the scholarship EPA. And then there's a more comprehensive assessment system. For people who haven't been in training recently — you are deeply involved in medical education and I'm currently in training, so this is all very familiar to us — but if you've been out of fellowship for some time, this may not be front of mind.

Workplace-based assessment, often referred to as micro-assessment: basically, assessing a trainee right after an encounter, a procedure, a case. These are going to be commonplace. And the trainee will often prompt it as well, because you know you need to get those micro-assessments done. As soon as I finish an echo read,

Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (16:51.36) Mm-hmm.

Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (17:04.717) Mm-hmm.

Benjamin Courchia, MD (17:09.888) I will prompt whoever was supervising me to make sure they review it so I can get my points. Then they mentioned something quite interesting: technology, including mobile apps, can support this new approach to assessment. Building upon lessons from the general pediatrics pilot, the ABP is currently reviewing proposals from vendors to support EPA-based assessment in the subspecialties. I forget what platform we use at McGill — I think it's called i45, or something like that.

Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (17:19.865) Mm-hmm.

Benjamin Courchia, MD (17:37.934) It's a platform. I should know what it's called. But the point is, everything is on your phone and it's done quickly. They also mentioned 360-degree evaluations from a range of team members. I think this is great. And please make sure parents are included. I believe parents have been included in evaluations before. In fellowship, I was evaluated by parents.

Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (17:42.733) Well, it doesn't matter what it's called — it allows for more real-time assessment.

Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (17:56.281) Mm-hmm.

Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (18:04.129) Yes, parents, nurses. That's right.

Benjamin Courchia, MD (18:07.17) I would always try to pick the parents who really liked me. Get some good numbers. There will be longitudinal tracking of EPA progress — that makes sense. Clinical Competency Committee review and attestation. Basically, a fellowship program committee would be structured to ensure everything is on track. One of the key statements in this document is that these changes are designed to improve readiness,

Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (18:34.723) Hmm.

Benjamin Courchia, MD (18:35.55) not to reduce standards. I think this is going to be the compass that drives all conversation moving forward. The key is not to let standards be reduced inadvertently. Everyone involved in this process seems aligned on the idea that standards should remain high — and ideally improve. But whenever you make changes, some byproducts can be hard to foresee.

This is where everyone will have to be diligent in ensuring that these changes don't reduce standards in any way. And when you're trying to apply something across 15 subspecialties, that's going to be hard. Will the rules need to be tailored per subspecialty? Time will tell. Some subspecialties are entirely outpatient. Developmental peds, for example, is

Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (19:16.729) Yeah, they're not all the same.

Benjamin Courchia, MD (19:32.802) as far as I know, entirely outpatient. And then you have pediatric critical care, which is all inpatient. Do these have different enough natures and requirements that we need to tailor them differently? We will see.

Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (19:41.913) Mm-hmm.

Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (19:47.289) It's an interesting idea. Through this curricular change, could we actually improve readiness at fellowship completion compared to the three-year model? Maybe. I think it's an interesting idea, and hopefully that will be the case.

Benjamin Courchia, MD (20:06.956) Yeah. One of the things they mention is that this reflects an important evolution. Though I wonder — is it an evolution or a revolution? Time will tell. And

Do you have any other thoughts? I have some more of my own. Is there anything else in the document you wanted to mention? Because I want to talk about what's not in the document.

Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (20:36.697) Well, I think what comes next is important. In the coming weeks to months, the ABP will host listening sessions and webinars to support dialogue and gather input to inform successful implementation of this model. External feedback will be important in shaping how it rolls out. The ABP will provide ongoing updates on its website, including a summary of the model, key developments, and upcoming opportunities for engagement. So for people who want to be involved

or just stay up to date, that's how to do it. My question to you is: how does this shift fit in with Dr. Satyan Lakshminrusimha's theory in his paper from June of last year — "Is It Time for a Separate Residency and Department in Neonatal Critical Care Medicine?" I wonder how this

impacts the idea that neonatology should have its own residency altogether.

Benjamin Courchia, MD (21:39.106) Yeah, Dr. Satyan was raising the idea that neonatology should potentially break off from pediatrics and the ABP — not to dismiss the training we receive, but to ask why we couldn't be structured more like pediatric neurology, where you rotate through pediatrics as almost a preliminary year and then move straight into neonatology. Because neonatology is getting

Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (22:01.944) Right.

Benjamin Courchia, MD (22:07.458) denser and denser by the year. And in my opinion, if the cards are going to be reshuffled, now is the time. I'm not saying this is the right idea or the wrong idea — I would never presume to substitute myself for the people thinking about this every single day. But if you're going to reshuffle the cards, put everything on the table, and review the number of years and what they entail, then now is the time to ask: what if neonatology took this opportunity to try something truly different instead of just going along with the changes affecting every other specialty? I don't know if Dr. Satyan would have wanted another five years to build more momentum.

Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (22:38.873) Mm-hmm.

Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (23:03.693) To hammer it all out.

Benjamin Courchia, MD (23:05.762) But the time is now, it looks like.

Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (23:09.483) Yeah, I'm sure he'll let us know.

Benjamin Courchia, MD (23:11.564) Yeah. We're due to speak with him at PAS in the coming days, and we'll definitely be asking this to a lot of people there. It's going to be an interesting point of conversation. As Matt put it in his email, there are strong feelings about this from every angle. What I was going to say is that what bothers me about all of this in general is the idea that training

Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (23:16.001) Yes, I sure hope so.

Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (23:28.153) One way or another.

Benjamin Courchia, MD (23:39.864) really stops at the end of fellowship. And it's missing the idea that, if we accept that even as attendings we're going to continue to learn — which is the reality.

Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (23:50.925) Because that's how it happens, right? That first year out, that first 18 months out, you're saying, "Why didn't I learn this in fellowship?" And there are just some things you can't learn in fellowship, or won't learn, or may not have had the opportunity to learn based on a number of factors.

Benjamin Courchia, MD (24:09.1) Yeah. I forget who it was — maybe we can call that person a mentor, because it was very good advice. But that person said: when you go interview for jobs after fellowship, one of the questions you should always ask is, "Tell me how your group supports junior attendings as they transition out of fellowship." That was such a great question, because I've been to certain groups where they're honest about it. They say, we don't really support you — meaning,

Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (24:30.233) Yeah, who do I go to when I don't know? Yeah.

Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (24:38.329) Yeah.

Benjamin Courchia, MD (24:38.838) you'll be practicing by yourself because you'll be the only clinician there that day. You're in private practice. Some people choose that intentionally — it's not an academic environment, and that works for them. But if you feel like a very robust fellow and think you don't need that, it's still great to know up front. And this raises the idea: what if the ABP considered

Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (24:43.427) Mm-hmm.

Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (24:47.225) Yeah.

Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (24:53.849) They don't have to teach you.

Benjamin Courchia, MD (25:08.926) building in some touchups in the 18 to 24 months post-fellowship? I know it goes against the notion that if you're not competent, you shouldn't be practicing independently. But medicine is an art. Nobody leaves fellowship perfect. You are still learning, and maybe we should accept that.

Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (25:18.745) Hmm.

Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (25:32.985) Well, and we've spoken about this at many conferences. That's the first three years — but what about when you're 10 years out, 15 years out, 20 years out? How are we keeping up to date with all the information? Is our current system working for longitudinal learning, especially in a field that's changing faster than potentially any other?

Benjamin Courchia, MD (25:59.138) That's a big commitment though. You're asking the ABP to accompany you for the next 15 years.

Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (26:01.899) I'm not saying the ABP has to do it. I'm just saying — we as a community have to find a way to support each other and continue learning.

Benjamin Courchia, MD (26:11.212) Absolutely. But I do think there's an opportunity here to accept that we're all lifelong learners and that this is not purely a time-based three-year process. Time is a component, but maybe you learn along the way and we continue to provide support. We could think of it like tapering steroids — full dose the first year, half dose the second, 25% the third, and slowly we take off the training wheels.

Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (26:46.867) They wean us up.

Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (26:51.449) Okay.

Benjamin Courchia, MD (27:07.82) That'd be interesting to consider. But regardless, these are all speculative thoughts. The point of this podcast was really to make you aware that this is happening. It is not a rumor — we don't do that. This is an article that is available online, and we will post it on the website. It is dated Thursday, April 16th. You can find it online. It's called "Ensuring Readiness for Practice: Advancing Competency-Based Subspecialty Training." It's a quick read, and it outlines the proposal to move towards a two-year clinical pathway for all pediatric subspecialties, with a potential start date of July 2028.

Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (27:18.349) Mm-hmm.

Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (27:35.843) And for people wondering, do I really have to go read it? I think we've covered most of it on this podcast, but everybody should always go to the source.

Benjamin Courchia, MD (27:42.158) Yeah, there's not much else beyond what we've discussed. I do want to mention that this has been talked about in the hallways of various conferences, which is why I wanted to clarify — this is not something somebody whispered to us. This has been published and is available for everyone to read. But as we always say in our talks, none of us check every website all the time, and I certainly don't check the latest

Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (28:09.975) Impossible.

Benjamin Courchia, MD (28:12.014) press release from the ABP. But yes, it's there. Daphna, is there anything else we need to cover? We will be at PAS.

Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (28:19.753) No, I wish we could have a forum on our page for people to discuss it. Can you make that happen? Can we make that happen yet?

Benjamin Courchia, MD (28:25.558) No. We can have comments and such, but I think social media is probably a better place to have this conversation. The Incubator Podcast website might just be an echo chamber for a certain group of people.

Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (28:32.878) Yeah.

Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (28:42.765) That's fair. But we'll post this on our social media channels, so hopefully people can engage that way.

Benjamin Courchia, MD (28:49.824) Absolutely. We will see you all at PAS in Boston. We are the official podcast partner of PAS this year, which is very exciting — whatever that means. We're still doing the podcast the same way we always have, so there won't be fireworks, but you'll see us around. Stop by. We have some gifts for attendees at PAS. I believe we'll be located near the registration desk. The Convention Center in Boston is quite big.

Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (29:00.537) I'm sorry.

Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (29:05.378) No.

Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (29:15.842) Enormous.

Benjamin Courchia, MD (29:16.654) And we will be recording The Incubator Podcast live at the conference starting Friday all the way through Sunday. I believe you're flying out Sunday night, and I'll be there Monday with no podcast obligations, so I can shoot the breeze with people if you're around. All right. I think that's going to do it for us today. All right, everybody, next time.

Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (29:26.475) Late night, but yeah.

Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (29:36.771) Love that.

Sounds good. Thanks everybody.