About FSMB
The Federation of State Medical Boards (FSMB) is a national non-profit organization representing the 70 medical boards of the United States and its territories.

Mission
To continuously improve the quality, safety and integrity of health care through developing and promoting high standards for physician licensure and practice.

What We Do
Based in Dallas, the FSMB (www.fsmb.org) serves as the national voice for its member boards and is a recognized authority throughout the United States on issues related to medical licensure and discipline. FSMB's activities include:

• Co-sponsoring the United States Medical Licensing Examination
• Maintaining a comprehensive databank of disciplinary actions taken against physicians by state medical boards and other agencies
• Developing policies that promote best practices in medical regulation and encourage uniformity in how states license and discipline physicians
• Verifying physicians medical credentials for state medical boards
• Providing educational programs for members and staff of state medical boards

Current Issues
On behalf of its members, the FSMB is actively involved in many important issues impacting consumer protection and patient care, including:

• Pain Management - Addressing the need for balance between the chronic problem of the undertreatment of pain with concerns in the law enforcement community about drug diversion
• Internet Prescribing - Addressing public health threat of "rogue" online pharmacies, which bypass state laws by selling prescription medications to consumers based on online questionnaires, present a growing public health threat
• Physician Mobility and Emergency Preparedness - Developing systems that ease the ability of physicians to move from state to state, particularly in times of disaster
• International Medical Education - Assessing the quality of non-U.S. medical schools
• Sexual boundaries - Educating medical boards and physicians in appropriate boundaries with patients

For a complete listing of FSMB policy documents on these and other subjects, visit the Government Relations and Policy section at www.fsmb.org.

Improving Public Access to Physician Disciplinary Information
The FSMB's Docinfo database (www.docinfo.org) gives consumers instant access to the nation's largest repository of physician licensure and disciplinary data - more than 1.3 million records dating to the 1960s. Consumers conducting physician searches on Docinfo will receive a report listing the physician's medical school and year of graduation, medical specialty, medical licensure history by state and any disciplinary actions taken against the physician by a state medical board or other agency. The cost is $9.95 per search.

For more information
For more information about the FSMB, visit www.fsmb.org or contact: Drew Carlson, director of Public Relations, FSMB at dcarlson@fsmb.org or (817) 868-4043.