The UEMS represents medical specialists across Europe and beyond, and has committed itself to contribute to the improvement of medical training at the European level through the development of European Standards (European Training Requirements - ETR).
As such, UEMS organised on 20st April 2023 in Brussels, its first conference on medical specialists' training. The conference gathered altogether 150 people, medical specialists, and academics from Europe and beyond to exchange views and ideas over a new era in medical training.
The objective that drives the UEMS is better education and better environment of training for medical trainees.
This one-day conference started with preliminary results on a survey conducted by the UEMS with the national medical associations. These results highlight that the UEMS' actions to harmonise specialists training across Europe have tangible outcomes: more and more countries declare being influenced by the ETR for their national specialty trainings. Then, representatives from Switzerland and Finland showed how they implement competency-based medical education and the CanMEDS framework. Competency-based medication education and CanMEDS emphasize abilities of a physician under not only medical expert role, but also other professional skills such as communication, leadership, situational judgement or multidisciplinary decision-making.
To complement the above presentations, before round tables sessions, the assessment of performance of trainees through Entrustable Professional Activities as implemented in the Netherlands was presented. Assessment of professional development and competence through Entrustable Professional Activities aims at assessing physicians' competences in daily work, and individualising postgraduate medical training.
The second half of the day was dedicated to constructive discussions through round tables. The attendees participated in brainstorming sessions on the role of trainees, trainers and training institutions in the training process: mentoring or training the trainers questions for example. They shared experiences of the implementation of competency-based education in their countries and medical specialties.
The fruitful exchanges from all participants will lead in coming months to refine and guide towards incorporating competency-based medical education in the new ETRs at the European level for further implementation nationally.
The UEMS will continue being at the forefront of harmonisation of medical specialists' training across Europe with a paradigm shift for better training and better patient care.