Educational milestone development in the first 7 specialties to enter the next accreditation system

Area of Science:

• Medical Education
• Graduate Medical Education
• Physician Competency Assessment

Background:

• The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) Outcome Project aimed to enhance resident assessment but lacked a robust system.
• Educational milestones were developed collaboratively to define observable steps in resident professional development.

Purpose of the Study:

• To summarize the development of educational milestones for 7 specialties.
• To provide evidence supporting the validity of these milestones for the next accreditation system.

Main Methods:

• Specialty workgroups used a 5-level developmental framework.
• Methods included literature reviews, curriculum analysis, constituent input, and pilot testing.

Main Results:

• Diverse sets of milestones were created, reflecting specialty-specific attributes of competence.
• The development process and the milestones themselves support a validity argument for complex performance assessment.

Conclusions:

• Initial validity evidence stems from the development process and the milestones.
• Further research is needed on using milestone data for resident assessment and program accreditation.