Assessing the ACGME Competencies in Psychiatry Training programs.

Full Abstract

In 2000, the Accreditation Council of Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) laid out a definition of competence that included six specific areas of focus:
patient care (including clinical reasoning), medical knowledge, practice-based learning and improvement, interpersonal and communication skills, professionalism, and systems-based practice. The ACGME's intention was to mandate increasingly reliable and valid assessment measures to be used by all training programs over the next decade, with the goal of providing "more credible, accurate, reliable and useful educational outcome data." In this article, the authors will review definitions of competency according to the new ACGME standards and examine the assessment tools currently available, including global evaluations, 360-degree evaluations, checklists, standardized examinations and direct observations. The authors will provide an overview of critical considerations in different assessment methods, including timing, psychometric properties, benchmarks, and feedback. Finally, the authors will discuss the relevant literature concerning the strengths and weaknesses of these various assessment tools. Throughout, the authors will comment on the applicability of the literature on assessment to the field of psychiatry and consider directions for competency assessment within and beyond psychiatric training. Following the paper is an annotated bibliography of the literature for those wishing to explore this topic more deeply and a list of web-based resources that may be used by those wishing to access available instruments.Copyright (C) 2006 Academic Psychiatry.

Learn Faster Today Improve your study skills

Author information

Author/s: Swick, Susan (S); Hall, Sarah (S); Beresin, Eugene (E);

Affiliation: Department of Child Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital, 55 Fruit St., Boston, MA 02114, USA.

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Journal Article; Review

Journal: Academic psychiatry : the journal of the American Association of Directors of Psychiatric Residency Training and the Association for Academic Psychiatry (Acad Psychiatry), published in United States. (Language: eng)

Reference: -2006 Jul-Aug; vol 30 (issue 4) : pp 330-51

Dates: Created 2006/08/15; Completed 2006/12/15;

PMID: 16908614, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 12/26/2008)

Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.

Comments and Corrections

CommentIn: Acad Psychiatry. 2006 Jul-Aug;30(4):279-80. (PMID: 16908603)

External Links for this article (including full text providers, if available):

Click Electronic Full-text Provider Links to see options for finding the electronic full text links to this article. Note there may be a subscription or fee required for access to the full text. See our FAQ for information on finding FREE full text articles.

This article may also be located in paper journal collections available in many libraries. Use the Journal and Publication Information above to find the full article.

MeSH headings (categories)

This article was linked to the MESH Headings shown below.

Accreditation - standards
Clinical Competence - standards
Education, Medical, Graduate - standards
Humans
Internship and Residency - standards

Internship and Residency - standards
Psychiatry - education
Societies, Medical
Specialty Boards - standards
United States

These are the highest related articles currently in the database:

Guidelines for hospital privileges in vascular and endovascular surgery: recommendations of the Society for Vascular Surgery. Dec 2007
The Ophthalmic Clinical Evaluation Exercise (OCEX). 29 Jun 2004
Global Rating Assessment of Skills in Intraocular Surgery (GRASIS). 29 Sep 2005
The ophthalmic clinical evaluation exercise: reliability determination. 29 Sep 2005
Ophthalmic clinical evaluation exercise. 29 Sep 2006
Subspecialty fellowships: standardizing and enhancing the educational experience. 20 Feb 2007
Quality and quantity: gauging the effects of the new ACGME program requirements for inpatient psychiatric education. 29 Jun 2007
Revolutions in neurological training. 30 Oct 2007
Graduate education in thoracic surgery and the American College of Surgeons. 29 Jun 1998
Competencies in psychiatry: the new outcomes-based approach to medical training and education. 29 Apr 2002

See 100+ related articles.