The Swedish specialist examination in emergency medicine: form and function

The purpose of the Swedish specialist examination in Emergency Medicine is not only to determine whether residents have attained the level of competence of specialists, but also to guide and facilitate residency training.

The Swedish Society for Emergency Medicine has developed checklists that delineate criteria of consideration and action items for particular processes. These checklists are freely available and used to assess competence during the examination. They are also intended for use during teaching and clinical care, thus promoting alignment between clinical practice, teaching and assessment. The examination is carried out locally by residency program educators, thereby obviating travel expenses. It consists of a total of 24 stations and over 100 potential scenarios, thereby minimizing case specificity. Each station consists of a scenario based on a real case. The checklists allow for direct feedback to the examinee after each station.

This model may be of interest to other European countries.