Using entrustable professional activities to better prepare students for their postgraduate medical training: A medical student's perspective

Abstract

The problem: Medical students graduate underprepared for postgraduate medical training despite years of classroom and clinical training. In this article, a medical student shares her personal perspectives on three factors contributing to this problem in undergraduate medical education: students' peripheral roles in the clinical environment impede learning, students receive inadequate feedback, and assessments do not measure desired learning outcomes.

A solution: The authors describe how using entrustable professional activities (EPAs) could address these issues and promote students' clinical engagement by clarifying their roles, providing them with frequent and actionable feedback, and aligning their assessments with authentic work. These factors combined with grading schemes rewarding improvement could contribute to a growth mindset that reprioritizes clinical skill acquisition. The authors explore how medical schools have begun implementing the EPA framework, highlight insights from these efforts, and describe barriers that must be addressed.

The future: Incorporating EPAs into medical school curricula could better prepare students for postgraduate training while also alleviating issues that contribute to student burnout by defining students' roles, improving feedback, and aligning assessments with desired learning outcomes.

Keywords: Competency-based medical education; Entrustable professional activity (EPA); Medical student; Undergraduate medical education.