The Competency-Based Orthopaedic Residency Program at University of Toronto remains the first and only medical residency program in Canada based on trainees demonstrating professional competence on technical and other tasks related to their specialty, rather than on time spent on hospital rotations.
But other residency programs will soon be following suit, including some beginning this fall. Dr. Markku Nousiainen, orthopaedic surgeon and program director for the orthopaedic residency program, hopes to help other educators and program directors design effective competency-based programs. He participates in an international committee focused on competency-based education.
"We are world leaders in this area," he says. "There many other people who have written the original articles about doing it. But nobody has ever done what we've done here in Toronto and put a program in place. We are the only program that has five-plus years of experience."
Dr. Nousiainen and his colleagues have now hosted two workshops in Toronto for educators from around the world who are looking to design competency-based residency programs. He says, "The participants want to know 'How do we take the lessons learned at your centre and make this work in our centre?' We are leading the way.
"Our perspective on sharing our experience is this: Why reinvent the wheel? We are happy to share what we've designed and learned in our experience so that others can adapt it and make it work for their programs."
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