For almost 20 years, medical students on the way to becoming doctors were evaluated by measuring their competency in six domains: patient care, medical knowledge, communication, professionalism, systems-based practice, practice-based learning, and improvement.
In the process of transforming Michigan’s medical student curriculum over the past few years, leadership added two more competency domains: 1) leadership, teamwork and inter-professionalism, and 2) critical thinking and discovery to align with the overall program goals to make students leaders and change agents in medicine.
Competencies help teaching faculty and residency directors determine if a student will be a good leader, a good teammate, a critical thinker, or effective in discovery. They also help to assess where students are at in their developmental journey. When students take a personalized path, competencies ensure they properly develop toward their goals.
Competency committees are responsible for looking at all of the competencies and how students are individually achieving the standards within each of them. It helps students and faculty know how and where students should devote time and effort.
The Office of Medical Student Education has produced a 1-page informational flyer on “Competency-based Medical Education,” and a series of brief videos on this topic, and others, that further explain important aspects of U-M’s medical education program.
The Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME) — the group responsible for reaccreditation of the medical school’s M.D. degree — had planned to visit in April; however, the site visit was postponed by the COVID-19 pandemic. The LCME is planning a virtual site visit for July 8-10.
To learn more about the LCME self-study and upcoming site visit: https://medicine.umich.edu/medschool/about/lcme-self-study