Competency-based education: programme design and challenges to implementation.

Context: Competency-based education (CBE) has been widely cited as an educational framework for medical students and residents, and provides a framework for designing educational programmes that reflect four critical features: a focus on outcomes, an emphasis on abilities, a reduction of emphasis on time-based training, and promotion of learner centredness. Each of these features has implications and potential challenges for implementing CBE.

Methods: As an experiment in CBE programme design and implementation, the University of Michigan Master of Health Professions Education (UM-MHPE) degree programme was examined for lessons to be learned when putting CBE into practice.

Assessment challenges in competency-based education: A case study in health professions education.

There is a growing demand for health sciences faculty with formal training in education. Addressing this need, the University of Michigan Medical School created a Master in Health Professions Education (UM-MHPE). The UM-MHPE is a competency-based education (CBE) program targeting professionals.

Family Medicine Curriculum Resource Project: the future.

Under contract to the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), the Society of Teachers of Family Medicine (STFM) created an undergraduate medical education curricular resource designed to train physicians to practice in the 21st century. An interdisciplinary group of more than 35 educators worked for 4 years to create the Family Medicine Curriculum Resource (FMCR). By consensus, the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) competencies were adopted as the theoretical framework for this project.

The Family Medicine Curriculum Resource Project: implications for faculty development.

Faculty development implications related to implementing the Family Medicine Curriculum Resource (FMCR) Project provide an opportunity to look at the recommendations of the Society of Teachers of Family Medicine's federally funded Faculty Futures Initiative (FFI) and the recent Future of Family Medicine (FFM) project. Implications for faculty development include the importance of the clerkship setting, originally defined in 1991, with new features added in today's practice environment as outlined by the FFM and the changing assumptions in approaching faculty development. Previously, faculty development focused on teaching learners to master current knowledge.

Family medicine clerkship curriculum: competencies and resources.

Funded by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) from 2000-2005, the Family Medicine Curriculum Resource Project (FMCRP) developed a set of resources to improve medical student education. As part of this project, the FMCRP Clerkship Workgroup created and organized resources for developing, teaching, and evaluating a family medicine clerkship. Using the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education competencies as the overarching structure, the organizational scheme incorporated family medicine principles and themes in covering core topics.