Getting started and local support

Develop your ‘elevator speech’

If you’re a program director or just an advocate for Competence by Design (CBD), we hope you’ll take advantage of every opportunity to spread the word about the benefits of CBD. Your colleagues are busy though, so it’s important to refine your message – it should be short enough that you could deliver it in an elevator ride.

People will be looking to you for guidance so we’d like to help you prepare to answer their questions. Feeling natural about your ‘elevator speech’ will help you and them, so we encourage you to put your own spin on these main points:

• CBD is the Royal College’s version of competency based medical education (CBME).
• CBME is also being introduced around the world including in the United States, Europe and Australia.
• CBD is a multi-year, transformational change initiative. It is the biggest change in 100 years of medical education.
• CBD is an evolution, not a revolution.
• CBD applies to residency training and specialty practice in Canada.
• CBD will enhance patient care by improving learning and assessment across the continuum from residency to retirement.
• CBD is designed to ensure physicians have the evolving skills needed to meet the constantly evolving needs of patients.
• CBD organizes training into stages and clearly lays out markers for teaching and learning at each stage.
• Continuous low stakes assessments will occur against these competencies.
• These competencies will be measured by milestones and entrustable professional activities (EPAs).
• Residents must now demonstrate competence in order to progress through their stages of training.
• CBD promotes greater accountability, flexibility and learner centeredness – residents will play a greater and active role in their learning.
• CBD is not likely to change residency timeframes.
• CBD Includes broader systems changes, eg. Accreditation, CPD.

National CBME leads at your school

As part of the large and growing group of people across the country working together to support the implementation of CBD, a national group of competency based medical education (CBME) leads has been established. Located at each university, CBME leads work collaboratively to support and guide local programs and faculty as they transition to CBD. Find out who the CBME lead is at your school and how to contact them using the CBME leads Directory.

Your local program and faculty responsibilities

At the school and program level you will need to carry out things such as:

• local curriculum and assessment mapping,
• curriculum and assessment adjustments to meet national standards,
• local communication,
• local faculty development, and
• change management.

An approach to curriculum mapping will be important as you will need to map your specialty’s national EPAs and assessment strategy to your local training experiences.

Start considering the strengths and weaknesses in your program when it comes to implementing CBD. Where do you anticipate change may be needed? How might you plan to address any gaps in curriculum or assessment?

Think about the implications of the anticipated discussions, including what you can do before and after the CBD transition workshops to ease this transition process.

• Introducing CBD rationale, concepts and terms at relevant meetings (divisional rounds, educational rounds etc.).
• Introducing new assessment templates to provide faculty with exposure to documenting short observations with feedback.
• Piloting a competence committee.
• Considering how you will prepare residents for these new expectations in a CBD world.