Scholarly practitioners are broadly defined as healthcare professionals that address critical practice problems using theory, scientific evidence, and practice-based knowledge. Though scholarly practice is included in most competency frameworks, it is unclear what scholarly practice "is," how it "develops" and how it is…

Purpose: Job competency frameworks are based on the listing skills required for a job. The assumption is that if a candidate is presumed to have the skills, then the candidate should be able to do the job. Thus, employers hope to identify prospective employees having the required skills. However, this may differ from knowing whether the employee…

For nearly four decades, researchers have explored the integration of arts and humanities content into health professions education (HPE). However, enduring controversies regarding the purpose, efficacy, and implementation of humanities initiatives suggest that the "timing" and "context" of trainees' exposure to such content is…

Interprofessional practice is commonly discussed in the literature in terms of competencies. In this study we move away from the theoretical notions of criteria, concepts and guidelines to adopt an ontological approach which seeks to stay as close to the lived experience as possible. Our research asked 12 participants from a variety of health…

Learning curves are a useful way of representing the rate of learning over time. Features include an index of baseline performance (y-intercept), the efficiency of learning over time (slope parameter) and the maximal theoretical performance achievable (upper asymptote). Each of these parameters can be statistically modelled on an individual and…

Physician education has followed relatively rigid guidelines since the Flexner report of 1910. Medical education has been largely didactic with time-based progression and certifying exams, and with variable degrees of autonomy and supervision in graduate (post MD/DO degree) medical education programs. Innovative educational approaches now…

Knowledge of sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) by health care, police, legal and social work professionals has been shown to be insufficient. This lack of competence is likely to affect the quality of services. The aim of this study was to describe SRHR indicators in educational programmes in health care, police, legal and social…

Purpose: Relative to the overall population, older adults consume a disproportionally large percentage of health care resources. Despite advocacy and efforts initiated more than 30 years ago, the number of providers with specialized training in geriatrics is still not commensurate with the growing population of older adults. This contribution…

Context and Background: Athletic therapy postsecondary education and certification requirements in Canada have reached considerable milestones throughout their history. The most important of these accomplishments was administration of the first Canadian Athletic Therapists' Association (CATA) certification examination in 1975. At that time, there…

The heightened demand for accountability, access, and quality performance from health care professionals has resulted in linkages between continuing education (CE), performance improvement (PI), and outcomes. CE health professionals must also expand their skills and abilities to design, implement, and measure CE activities consistent with these…

Cultural competency training has been present in academic medicine for many years but interest has resurfaced when the Institute of Medicine released a report on health care disparity and called for curriculum improvement in medical education to eliminate the disparity in health care in the United States. This new interest, reinforced by medical…

This report discusses a working group convened in Varna, Bulgaria, by the World Health Organization to examine trends, issues, and problems regarding assessment of health professional competence and to prepare guidance to improve existing arrangements. Following a summary of the proceedings, the main portion of the paper reports main findings and…

Competence, defined as the ability to accomplish an essential performance characteristic in a satisfactory fashion, is examined from the podiatric education viewpoint. The factors involved in continuing competence, factors making continuing competence essential in health professions, and basic problems relating to clinical competence are…

Some broad problems involved in the assessment of competence in the health professions are defined. They include defining competence, the continuum of health professions education, the process of credentialing, internal/external evaluations, elements of controls on physicians' performance, monitoring process, and maintenance of competence. (MLW)

Designed as a resource for members of the World Health Organization, this guide on competency-based curriculum development in medical education may be applied to programs for other health professions and occupations. An explanation of subject-centered curricula and integrated curricula is offered, and ways in which these models differ from…