Implementing Competency-Based Medical Social Work Education and Training in an Academic Medicine Center in Singapore

Abstract

Academic medicine changes the way care is being delivered to patients. A culturally specific competency framework and education plan would be important for medical social workers to continue to meet national demands and global influences on an academic medical center. In translating the Academic Medicine Center (AMC) vision into reality, the medical social services department in an acute hospital of Singapore conducted a review of its competency framework for its medical social workers and mapped out the education and training in response to this endeavor. This led to 23 behavioral descriptors and 6 competency clusters at the general level, and 30 behavioral descriptors and 6 competency clusters at the advanced level. The department also implemented competency-based medical social work education to meet the hospital’s aspiration of being an AMC.