Design and Implementation of a National Program of Assessment Model - Integrating Entrustable Professional Activity Assessments in Canadian Specialist Postgraduate Medical Education

Associations Between Residency Program Size and Readiness for Unsupervised Practice in Pediatrics

OBJECTIVE

This study sought to determine differences in program-reported entrustable professional activity (EPA) entrustment-supervision levels based on residency program size.

METHODS

At the end of the 2021 to 2022, 2022 to 2023, and 2023 to 2024 academic years, entrustment-supervision levels for the 17 General Pediatrics EPAs were determined by clinical competency committees for graduating pediatric residents at 48 pediatrics residency programs. Programs were categorized as small, medium, large, and very large. The authors fitted a main-effects mixed-effects logistic regression model to predict the likelihood that a graduating resident was deemed ready to execute each EPA without supervision, with program size and EPA as fixed effects and program as a random effect. A second model also included the interaction between program size and EPA as a predictor.

RESULTS

A total of 33,335 entrustment-supervision levels were reported for 2285 graduating pediatrics residents. Small programs were more likely to report residents as ready for unsupervised practice than multiple larger-sized program groups for 4 EPAs (health screening, well newborn, recognize/refer surgical problems, and manage information).

CONCLUSIONS

Characteristics of small programs may lead them to be more likely to entrust graduating residents with unsupervised practice in certain areas.

Eight ways to support faculty with Entrustable Professional Activities

Competency Based Medical Education (CBME) is pushing the medical profession to be more accountable in our standards of assessment. This has led us to focus our efforts at the top of Miller's pyramid, where we aim to see what the trainee 'does' in the clinical environment. In Canadian Royal College specialty training, this has come in the form of workplace-based supervision of trainees performing Entrustable Professional Activities (EPAs). This is unfamiliar territory for many residents and faculty, and implementation of an additional assessment process into already busy clinical practice has been particularly challenging. Because EPA assessments serve as significant contributors in new programs of assessment, failure to collect high quality EPA assessments threaten the validity of this new system. Understanding the barriers to and enablers of EPA acquisition can inform faculty development initiatives to ensure success. Based on our previous work studying early experiences of EPA assessment acquisition in Emergency Medicine, we have identified eight key concepts to guide faculty development initiatives, namely: the rationale for CBME, the 'behind the scenes' of CBME, how to construct rich narrative comments, effective use of supervision scales, the tension of EPA assessments being both formative and summative, the importance of a shared responsibility between residents and faculty for EPA assessment completion, familiarity with the suite of EPAs, and tips and tricks for incorporating EPA assessment completion into busy clinical practice. These key concepts can be integrated into an overall faculty development strategy for building this now essential skill set.