The Future of Cardiovascular Education and Training.

Abstract

In this review, we will attempt to envision not just emerging changes in training in each of our specialties, but also some of the general directions in which the field of postgraduate medical education will evolve. Although the formal training programs in our professional areas are at distinctive phases in the transition from a traditional time-limited apprenticeship model to one that is focused on the quantitative assessment of competency, they each share the burdens of adapting to increasingly rapid change in the fundamental knowledge base and in patterns of care delivery. These challenges come at a time when there is increasing uncertainty in reimbursement and job security for clinicians in cardiovascular disease. We have tried to highlight specific developments in the relevant sections, but it is clear that the external and internal pressures in each cardiovascular specialty and our responses to these pressures overlap considerably. By learning from each other and adopting best practices, we will be better able to cope with the inevitable change that professional education promises in the next decade and beyond. The education and training of physicians in pediatric cardiology continues to evolve with a recent paradigm shift in training from proscriptive time-based or procedural number-based recommendations for training to competency-based objectives. The 2015 training guidelines for Pediatric Cardiology programs were revised by task force members that included representatives from all relevant professional societies (American Academy of Pediatrics, American College of Cardiology, and American Heart Association) and the Society of Pediatric Cardiology Training Program Directors.1 The 2015 guidelines highlight the paradigm shift toward competency. Although previous guidelines were based on the assumption that competency for given activities, tasks, or procedures would naturally follow from proscriptions of months of exposure and numeric targets, the new guidelines reflect the reality that it is competence that is the …