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The Future of Medical Education: Simulation-Based Assessment in a Competency-by-Design Curriculum

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Boot Camp Approach to Surgical Training

Abstract

Competency-Based Medical Education (CBME) represents the biggest change to medical education since Halstead proposed his apprenticeship model over 100 years ago. This new paradigm has been crafted over nearly four decades (McGaghie 1978), and is built on the principle that trainee physicians and surgeons must fulfill core competencies, spanning professionalism to technical aptitude, prior to independent practice (Frank et al. 2015). This shift to CBME as an underpinning framework in medical education has brought about increased demand for assessment of trainee performance. Simulation has been identified as a means to increase trainee exposure to and experience with clinical tasks, without increasing the burden of patient harm (Griswold et al. 2012; Holmboe et al. 2010).

Evidence suggests that both mastery learning and iterative simulation training can move physicians along their learning curve and impact both educational and clinical outcomes (Zendejas et al. 2011; Brydges et al. 2015). Additionally, simulation-based assessments (SBA) have accumulated multiple sources of validity evidence from studies in the medical and surgical literature (Cook et al. 2014). Despite the widening access to simulation at medical institutions, many questions surrounding the optimal integration of simulation into the CBME framework still exist. Failure to take a methodical and evidence-based approach to the implementation of simulation training and SBA in CBME would be a disservice to medical trainees and the public alike.

In this chapter, we will explore some of the issues regarding the use of simulation for the training and assessment of resident physicians in the new era of CBME. We will do so by assembling the relevant literature describing simulation-based educational interventions that have been previously implemented, taking an analytical approach to probe the underlying validity evidence for the use of simulation as a tool to allow trainees to meet competency requirements as set out by the stakeholders in medical education. We will also discuss future utilities of the surgical boot camp in surgical training, beyond the simple introduction of technical and non-technical skills to new trainees.

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Goldenberg, M.G., Grantcharov, T.P. (2018). The Future of Medical Education: Simulation-Based Assessment in a Competency-by-Design Curriculum. In: Safir, O., Sonnadara, R., Mironova, P., Rambani, R. (eds) Boot Camp Approach to Surgical Training. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90518-1_11

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90518-1_11

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