Competency- based education (CBE) is quickly becoming the new norm in undergraduate medical education as exemplified by the AAMC’s Core Entrustable Professional Activities (EPAs) for Entering Residency initiative (CEPAER).CEPAER describes 13 EPAs that all medical students should be able to perform competently prior to entering residency. By design, CEPAER applies to an undifferentiated medical student; the standards are not specialty-specific. As many medical schools move towards adopting the CEPAER standards as well as their own internal CBE approaches, it is prudent for Family Medicine (FM) clerkships to consider what a FM competency-based curriculum would look like within the context of their own institutions. This allows for clerkships to proactively adapt and include specialty specific objectives in addition to the global AAMC EPAs.
This lecture discussion will describe how one required FM clerkship program at an accredited US Allopathic Medical school transitioned its curriculum to a competency –based approach as part of a larger School of Medicine curricular transformation. When posed with the question, “How do we maintain what makes Family Medicine, unique” the FM clerkship curriculum design team answered by implementing an experiential, competency based-approach. We utilizing the five domains of FM previously described. We identified experiential competencies that fall into these domains and further broke out a series of clinical care based Educational Activities (EAs) that map to each of the competencies and happen in the clinical learning environment. Some EAs are core and required of all students, while others are selective, allowing learners to personalize their clerkship learning experiences. Students document their EAs on a learning management system to demonstrate their competence in all FM experiential competencies. By re-framing the FM curriculum in a competency-based format, the clerkship has been able to complement the broader CBE efforts of the School of Medicine, creating opportunities for synergy and collaboration. At a national level, this approach extends CEAPAR’s efforts into the specialty realm. Audience members will learn more about the process of implementing and assessing this curriculum as well as better understanding how this approach can be applied to their own institutions.