board-certified?

[Camlearner]

Hi

What's more, only a quarter of hospitals have access to doctors board-certified in pediatric emergency medicine, and more than a third have no pediatric specialists on call at all. Without their specialized knowledge, kids' care can be seriously affected.

What does board-certified mean? What's its grammar funciton? It look strange here to me.

Source: http://edition.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/0...s.p/index.html

Thanks

 

[Valvs]

In the United States, board-certified means "certified by the one or more of the member boards of American Board of Medical Specialties".

 

[Egmont]

In terms of its function, it is an adjective that modifies "doctors." The words "who are" were left out; in full, it would be "doctors who are board-certified ..." or in the other order, "board-certified doctors." The need to add "in pediatric emergency medicine" makes the normal word order, in which adjectives precede the nouns they modify, awkward, so in this case we put the adjective after it. Leaving out "who are" is common.

 

[Parla]

A board, to explain further, in this case means a panel of experts. To certify is to attest that the physician has special knowledge and skills in a particular area of medicine, in this case emergency care of children. A board-certified physician has thus been certified by the board.

 

[Camlearner]

Thanks everyone. Now I understand doctors (who are) board-certified.