Scholar
Definition
As Scholars, physicians demonstrate a lifelong commitment to excellence in practice through continuous learning and by teaching others, evaluating evidence, and contributing to scholarship.
Description
Physicians acquire scholarly abilities to enhance practice and advance health care. Physicians pursue excellence by continually evaluating the processes and outcomes of their daily work, sharing and comparing their work with that of others, and actively seeking feedback in the interest of quality and patient safety. Using multiple ways of learning, they strive to meet the needs of individual patients and their families* and of the health care system.
Physicians strive to master their domains of expertise and to share their knowledge. As lifelong learners, they implement a planned approach to learning in order to improve in each CanMEDS Role. They recognize the need to continually learn and to model the practice of lifelong learning for others. As teachers they facilitate, individually and through teams, the education of students and physicians in training, colleagues, co-workers, the public, and others.
Physicians are able to identify pertinent evidence, evaluate it using specific criteria, and apply it in their practice and scholarly activities. Through their engagement in evidence-informed and shared decision-making, they recognize uncertainty in practice and formulate questions to address knowledge gaps. Using skills in navigating information resources, they identify evidence syntheses that are relevant to these questions and arrive at clinical decisions that are informed by evidence while taking patient values and preferences into account.
Finally, physicians’ scholarly abilities allow them to contribute to the application, dissemination, translation, and creation of knowledge and practices applicable to health and health care.
KEY CONCEPTS
Lifelong learning
- Collaborative learning: 1.3
- Communities of practice: 1.3
- Patient safety: 1.3
- Performance assessment: 1.2
- Personal learning plan: 1.1
- Quality improvement: 1.1, 1.2, 1.3
- Reflection on practice: 1.2
- Seeking feedback: 1.2
- Self-improvement: 1.1, 1.2, 1.3
Teacher
- Faculty, rotation, and program evaluation: 2.5, 2.6
- Formal and informal curricula: 2.1
- Hidden curriculum: 2.1
- Learner assessment: 2.5, 2.6
- Learning outcomes: 2.4, 2.5, 2.6
- Mentoring: 2.2, 2.5
- Needs assessment: 2.4
- Optimization of the learning environment: 2.2
- Principles of assessment: 2.6
- Providing feedback: 2.5, 2.6
- Role-modelling: 2.1, 2.5
- Supervision and graded responsibility: 2.3
- Teaching and learning: 2.2, 2.4, 2.5
Evidence-informed decision-making
- Effect size: 3.3, 3.4
- Evidence-based medicine: 3.1, 3.2, 3.3, 3.4
- Evidence synthesis: 3.2, 3.3
- External validity: 3.3
- Generalizability: 3.3
- Information literacy: 3.2
- Internal validity: 3.3
- Knowledge gaps: 3.1
- Knowledge translation: 3.3, 3.4
- Quality-appraised evidencealerting services: 3.2, 3.4
- Recognizing bias in research: 3.3
- Structured critical appraisal: 3.3
- Uncertainty in practice: 3.1
Research
- Conflict of interest: 4.2, 4.5
- Confidentiality: 4.1, 4.2
- Informed consent: 4.1
- Research: 4.1, 4.2, 4.3, 4.5
- Research ethics: 4.2
- Research methods: 4.4
- Scholarly inquiry: 4.1, 4.2, 4.4, 4.5
- Scholarship: 4.1, 4.2
- Scientific principles: 4.1
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* Throughout the CanMEDS 2015 Framework and Milestones Guide, references to the patient’s family are intended to include all those who are personally significant to the patient and are concerned with his or her care, including, according to the patient’s circumstances, family members, partners, caregivers, legal guardians, and substitute decision-makers.