Competency-based simulation education: should competency standards apply for simulation educators?

Abstract

The healthcare education landscape is evolving. Recent years have seen a change in conceptualisations of learning, assessment and time-based versus competency-based education (CBE).1 These changes will influence healthcare provider training and ultimately the clinical care they provide to patients. CBE has elevated the discourse surrounding clinical competencies and entrustable professional activities.2 Inherent to this focus on educational outcomes is a renewed attention on the role of formative clinical experiences: how we engage and empower learners in their own education; how we organise workplace-based learning to provide the graded supervision our trainees require while maintaining patient safety; and how we help our trainees maximise learning from clinical practice and progress in their training through robust assessment and feedback mechanisms.2 ,3 This changing landscape places a heavy burden on busy clinician educators who themselves may require significant training and faculty development to translate the emerging educational science into effective clinical teaching practice. The very nature of CBE requires clinical educators to assess learners frequently in a manner that allows reliable and valid inferences across the spectrum of clinical competencies that are required for their specific training programme.1 In addition, assessment of individual learner competencies will occur in workplace settings where clinical care is a team activity. We see a mismatch between a CBE approach we value and strive for and the relative underemphasis of faculty teaching skills required for its effective implementation and outcomes assessment. Without equal and parallel attention to clinical educator training, we fear this disconnect has the potential to undermine the translation of promising advances gleaned from healthcare education research into widespread clinical education. The increasing adoption of healthcare …