—Dr. Dini Hui, Director, Undergraduate Medical Education
EPA implementation for undergraduate MD students delayed until March 2023
The MD Program will be incorporating entrustable professional activities (EPAs) into the third year of clerkship as a form of workplace-based assessment. An EPA is a typical clinical task or responsibility that is entrusted for “unsupervised execution by the learner” once they have obtained “sufficient specific competence.”
Implementation was initially planned for March 2022, however, due to numerous factors, implementation has now been delayed until March 2023. Implementation will take place in two phases with a pilot from March 2023 and full implementation beginning in September 2023. The pilot will enable the MD program to consider student and faculty perspectives as part of a program evaluation.
EPA implementation is an accreditation requirement and a key component of our transition to competency-based medical education. EPAs will function primarily as a formative, low stakes, feedback tool, enabling us to inform the developmental progress of students over the course of Clerkship and support them by providing effective feedback.
The Association of Faculties of Medicine in Canada (AFMC) has identified 12 EPAs for undergraduate learners – tasks that they should be entrusted to perform with indirect supervision on day one of residency training. An EPA is not high stakes; it is a snapshot. Each assessment provides students with a data point of where they are at in their development and creates multiple, ongoing opportunities for coaching and performance improvement.
As more information and faculty development initiatives become available, we will be sure to share this information widely. Thank you for your ongoing support of the undergraduate MD program.
