General competencies are intrinsic to emergency medicine training: a multicenter study

Area of Science:

• Medical Education
• Graduate Medical Training
• Emergency Medicine

Background:

• The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) mandates evaluation of six General Competencies (GCs) in residency programs.
• The integration and acquisition of these GCs within Emergency Medicine (EM) residency training require investigation.

Purpose of the Study:

• To assess whether the ACGME General Competencies are an intrinsic component of Emergency Medicine residency training.
• To evaluate the progressive acquisition of GCs by EM residents across different training years.

Main Methods:

• An observational, multicenter, cross-sectional study involving five allopathic EM programs in Michigan.
• A global assessment form with 86 items on a 9-point ordinal scale was used to evaluate 150 residents (EM1, EM2, EM3).
• Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was employed to compare mean GC scores between resident PGY levels.

Main Results:

• Statistically significant differences (p < 0.001) in the acquisition of all six GCs were observed across EM1, EM2, and EM3 residents.
• Scores for Patient Care, Medical Knowledge, Practice-based Learning and Improvement, Interpersonal and Communication Skills, Professionalism, and Systems-based Practice showed progressive increases with resident seniority.
• Specific mean scores demonstrated a clear upward trend from first-year to third-year residents for all GCs.

Conclusions:

• Emergency Medicine residents demonstrate statistically significant, progressive acquisition of ACGME General Competencies.
• The findings suggest that the ACGME GCs are an intrinsic and developing aspect of Emergency Medicine residency education.
• Global assessment tools can effectively measure the acquisition of these essential competencies in graduate medical training.