The outcomes of global minimum essential requirements (GMER) pilot implementation in China

Defining global standards for medical education in the form of competencies and the methods to evaluate whether an individual student possesses these competencies at graduation has long been a dream of some medical educators. The development of such standards, the methods to assess their presence and the pilot test study of the standards in graduating students at eight medical schools in China, as well as the process for establishing student and school performance "cut points", has been previously described. This paper reports on the performance of a single student who went through the assessment process, the performance of all students at one of the eight medical schools and the collective performance of all students at all eight medical schools. The actual quantitative data is presented, as is the conclusion of where the student, the school and all schools had strengths, where they were borderline in performance and/or where they need improvement. The results are serving as a blueprint for medical education reform in China. Implications of the pilot test and the entire process are discussed, as is the potential for global adoption of outcome based assessments.