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

The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) has promulgated six areas called General Competencies (GCs) that residency programs are required to evaluate. The authors sought to determine if these domains were an intrinsic part of emergency medicine (EM) residency training by using a global assessment evaluation device.

This was an observational, multicenter, cross-sectional study that compared GC acquisition between first-, second-, and third-year (EM1, EM2, and EM3) residents. Five postgraduate year (PGY) 1 to PGY 3 allopathic EM programs in Michigan participated. A global assessment form using a 1 through 9 ordinal scale with 86 scoring items was given to program directors for each resident in their programs. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to compare the means between EM1, EM2, and EM3 scores.

Five EM programs evaluated 150 residents. The GC scores were as follows: Patient Care: EM1 4.92, EM2 5.79, and EM3 6.40; Medical Knowledge: EM1 4.90, EM2 5.80, and EM3 6.46; Practice-based Learning and Improvement: EM1 4.60, EM2 5.48, and EM3 6.16; Interpersonal and Communication Skills: EM1 4.99, EM2 5.39, and EM3 6.01; Professionalism: EM1 5.43, EM2 5.68, and EM3 6.27; Systems-based Practice: EM1 4.80, EM2 5.48, and EM3 6.21. ANOVA showed statistically significant differences (p < 0.001) for all GCs.

EM residents from several residency programs showed statistically significant progressive acquisition of the ACGME GCs using a global assessment device. This suggests that the GCs may be an intrinsic component in the training of EM residents.