Assessing medical students for non-traditional competencies

Area of Science:

• Medical Education
• Competency-Based Assessment
• Social and Community Health

Background:

• Assessing medical student competence in non-traditional domains like social and community health is challenging.
• Conventional assessment methods are often inadequate for these complex abilities.
• Brown Medical School's competency-based curriculum includes social and community contexts of health care as a core ability.

Purpose of the Study:

• To describe Brown Medical School's approach to assessing medical student competence in the social and community contexts of health care.
• To outline the methods used at beginner, intermediate, and advanced levels of training.
• To discuss the role of subjective judgments and diverse perspectives in assessment.

Main Methods:

• Beginner Level: Assessment via weekly field notes from community practice placements.
• Intermediate Level: Assessment based on the completion of a community health problem-focused project.
• Advanced Level: A multi-stage screening process involving individual meetings and committee review.

Main Results:

• The study details a progressive assessment strategy across different training levels.
• Subjective judgments and diverse faculty perspectives are integral to the consensus-building process.
• Student autonomy in expressing accomplishments is facilitated.

Conclusions:

• Brown Medical School employs a multi-level strategy to assess competence in social and community health care.
• The assessment process values diverse viewpoints and allows for student self-expression.
• This approach addresses the challenges of evaluating non-traditional medical competencies.