What Can a Pandemic Teach Us About Competency-based Medical Education?

Abstract

Medical education is moving towards competency-based medical education (CBME) where learning and assessment are focused on predefined abilities and outcomes. While medical student and residency training have defined competencies and objectives that trainees need to achieve, training remains time -based. Students and residents graduate based on a preset length of training. The COVID -19 pandemic is disrupting educational and clinical environments and in some regions the workforce may not be adequate to respond to the needs of the community. This, therefore, presents an opportunity for the medical education community to reconsider time-based training and embrace a competency-based progression to accelerate entry into the workforce. This commentary discusses undergraduate and graduate medical education response to workforce pressures of COVID-19. On one hand, some medical schools are moving towards competency-based (early) graduation from medical school. On the other hand, residency programs have generally held to time -based completion of training. In the context of this clinical and educational disruption, there are two challenges to CBME progression of trainees. The first challenge is whether there is trust in competency-based assessment to permit time independent progression. The second involves a number of logistical issues to competency-based progression.