The Specialty Standards Review Committee (SSRC) has been delegated authority by the Committee on Specialty Education to review and approve all Royal College discipline-specific standards documents in order to maintain the highest standards of postgraduate medical education.
The SSRC conducts comprehensive peer reviews of discipline-specific standards documents with the goal of:
·
assuring timely and coordinated review of the discipline-specific
standards documents that underpin the core activities of the Royal College;
·
ensuring consistency by reviewing suites of documents with attention
to all facets of the Office of Standards and Assessment (OSA): accreditation,
credentialing, training, and assessment;
·
providing recommendations on the approval status of
discipline-specific standards documents, namely approval, approval in
principle, or approval deferred (pending further clarification/significant
revision);
·
augmenting support for the specialty committees, Areas of Focused
Competence (AFC) committees/ subcommittees, advisory committees, and working
groups by providing feedback and suggested revisions; and
·
advising the OSA standing committees on broader policy implications
that arise during document reviews.
The SSRC is responsible for reviewing the following discipline-specific documents:
Specialty/subspecialty/special
program documents
·
Specific Standards of Accreditation (SSA)
·
Objectives of Training (OTR)
·
Specialty Training Requirements (STR)
Area
of Focused Competence (AFC-diploma) documents
·
Competency Training Requirements (CTR)
·
AFC-Standards of Accreditation (AFC-SA)
·
Competency Portfolio
Competence
by Design (CBD) documents
· [Discipline] Competencies
· Training Experiences
· Standards of Accreditation
In addition to reporting to the Committee on Specialty Education (CSE), the Specialty Standards Review Committee (SSRC) has a reporting relationship with the Committee on Specialties (COS).
The SSRC is comprised of current or former member(s) of specialty committees, AFC committees, AFC subcommittees, or the OSA standing committees (i.e., Accreditation Committee, Assessment Committee, Committee on Specialties, or Professional Learning and Development Committee) or their subcommittees who have been recommended to the role.
The SSRC will be chaired by the Director, Specialty Standards and Accreditation, Office of Standards and Assessment or the Associate Director of Specialty Standards. In the event that neither the director nor the associate director is available, an experienced SSRC member may be requested to chair a meeting on their behalf.
Representatives from all facets of OSA may participate in SSRC conference calls on an ad hoc basis.
Generally, committee members should meet the following criteria and possess the following key competencies:
Royal College Fellow
Experience in the development of discipline-specific documents
Detailed knowledge of the policies of the Royal College specifically related to accreditation, credentialing and/or assessment
Love of and feel for language
Clarity of thought
Attention to detail, thematic organization of text, and consistency within and between documents
Committee members should possess the ability and willingness to
meet the strategic directions of the Royal College and the willingness to
participate effectively in committee meetings.
The usual term of office is a single two-year term, which is renewable for as long as the committee member is actively contributing to the SSRC’s mandate and is committed to the role.
Four committee members, including the chair, shall constitute a quorum.
The SSRC typically meets via web conference to carry out its mandate. However, the committee may hold face-to-face meetings periodically, approximately once every 2 years, as a means of providing orientation for new members and facilitating learning and relationship building for all.
The SSRC meets via web conference as required as discipline-specific documents are finalized for review.
In conducting the document review, one SSRC member will be asked in advance to undertake the role of lead reviewer, performing a detailed review of one document or suite of documents on the agenda. That reviewer will lead the discussion of that document or suite of documents during the SSRC call, summarizing the comments and recommending changes. All SSRC members attending the call are asked to provide input and respond to the lead reviewer’s comments. OSA will assign the role of lead reviewer to an SSRC member, while monitoring to ensure equal distribution of responsibility over the course of the year.
Documents will generally be sent to SSRC members two weeks prior to the scheduled SSRC conference call. In order to achieve quorum, members are asked to make themselves available for a minimum of seven meetings each year. Web conferences are two hours in length and are generally scheduled between 10:00 and 16:00 hours Eastern Time.
After reviewing and discussing a document (or suite of documents), SSRC members attending the call will make a decision on the approval status of the document(s) by means of a majority vote. The decision may be approval, approval in principle, or approval deferred. Document(s) that are approved or approved in principle will be revised per the SSRC discussion and will undergo OSA verification en route to becoming official standards documents. Documents with approval deferred will return to the specialty committee with the SSRC feedback/suggestions and, upon revision, will be reassessed by SSRC.
In the
course of performing
their committee duties, committee members may produce or contribute to
materials, content or other work products. These work products and the related
intellectual property will be owned by the Royal College. The Royal College is
open to discussing other ownership arrangements for specific projects.
Alternative arrangements must be confirmed in writing by the project contributors
and the Royal College.
|
Approved by: |
Governance Committee |
|
Approval Date: |
June 19, 2023 |
|
Approval path: |
CSE, GC |
|
Effective date: |
June 19, 2023 |
|
Date of next review: |
Spring 2025 |
|
Royal College Office: |
OSA |
|
Version status: |
Approved |