NL
Medical professionals in training are usually trained on the basis of competency profiles. Fairly recently, verifiable cluster activities, the so-called Entrustable Professional Activities (EPAs), have been added. These profiles also seem to assume all kinds of positive personal characteristics, virtues. Virtues are crucial to the proper practice of one's profession and to remain "human" oneself, and one develops such qualities through a combination of habit formation, positive examples (role models) and reflection. But what virtues are assumed in such a profile? And what hidden ideal picture do these together form?
The competency profile and related behavioral and attitudinal criteria in the EPAs for ENT physicians in training were examined by Pleuntje Verstegen, Jos Kole, Stef Groenewoud (all of IQ Health) and Frank van den Hoogen using a self-developed virtue-ethics content analysis. It turns out that physician assistants are implicitly required to exhibit many (some 30) and a wide variety of virtues: sanity, temperance, commitment, efficiency, reliability and being dutiful and consistent are often assumed virtues. By making implicit assumptions explicit, such as this hidden ideal contained in competency language, we aim to stimulate discussion towards the role and function of ideal images and provide tools to further improve specialist training with more attention to personal and professional development in terms of virtues.
Read the entire article here: Pleuntje M. B. Verstegen, J. J. (Jos) Kole, A. Stef Groenewoud & Frank J. A. van den Hoogen: Virtues in Competency-Based Assessment Frameworks: A Text Analysis. Perspectives on Medical Education: https://doi.org/10.5334/pme.996