The concept of entrustable professional activities (EPAs) reframes the approach to assessment in competency-based medical education. Key to this concept is the linking of assessment to decision making about entrusting learners with clinical responsibilities. Based on recent literature and the authors' experiences with implementing EPAs, this article provides practical recommendations for how to implement EPAs for assessment and entrustment decisions in the workplace. Tips for supervising clinicians include talking to learners about trust, using EPA descriptions to guide learning and teaching, providing learners with greater ad hoc responsibilities, using EPAs to identify/create opportunities for assessment and feedback, including case-based discussions and acknowledging gut feelings about learner readiness for more autonomy. Tips for curriculum leaders entail enabling the trust development, applying trust decisions at all levels of the supervision scale, employing all available information sources for entrustment, empowering learner ownership of the assessment process and using technology for learner tracking and program evaluation.

In medical contexts around the world, supervising physicians continuously decide what degree of supervision to apply as trainees carry out professional activities. Although the implications for patients can be far-reaching, little is known about how these entrustment decisions are formed. The concept of ‘Entrustable Professional Activities’ has initiated interest and valuable research on factors that may influence the entrustment decision process.The aim of the current article is to link models of entrustment developed in the fields of occupational and organizational psychology and military psychology to medical education studies that have explored the factors influencing physicians’ entrustment decisions. We provide a conceptual framework of the entrustment decision-making process, which we suggest will contribute to the understanding of how supervising physicians arrive at the decision to entrust a medical trainee with a professional activity.

BackgroundInstitutions considering to employ core Entrustable Professional Activities (EPAs) for entry into postgraduate training as outcomes for their undergraduate medical programs can partly build on published examples, but also have to undergo their own content validation process to take their specific context into consideration. This process involves several challenges and is not well-described in the literature. Here, we report in detail on a systematic, literature-based approach we recently utilised at our institution to define core EPAs for entry into residency.Main bodyCentral to the process was a modified Delphi consent procedure. It involved a multistep interaction between a writing team and a multidisciplinary panel of experienced physicians. Panel members provided both quantitative ratings and qualitative feedback on the EPA categories title, specification/limitations, conditions and implications of entrustment decision, knowledge, skills, and attitude. Consent was achieved when a Content Validity Index (CVI) of ≥80% was reached. The writing team adjusted the EPA category descriptions on the basis of panel members´ ratings and comments, and specified the EPA categories’ link to competencies and assessment sources. This process produced a description and definition of a full set of core EPAs for entry into residency adapted to our context.ConclusionsThis process description for locally adapted core EPAs for entry into residency may support and guide other medical schools in the development and implementation of EPAs into their programs.

BackgroundSufficient preparedness is important for transitions to workplace participation and learning in clinical settings. This study aims to analyse medical students’ preparedness for early clerkships using a three-dimensional, socio-cognitive, theory-based model of preparedness anchored in specific professional activities and their supervision level.MethodsMedical students from a competency-based undergraduate curriculum were surveyed about preparedness for 21 professional activities and level of perceived supervision during their early clerkships via an online questionnaire. Preparedness was operationalized by the three dimensions of confidence to carry out clerkship activities, being prepared through university teaching and coping with failure by seeking support. Factors influencing preparedness and perceived stress as outcomes were analysed through step-wise regression.ResultsProfessional activities carried out by the students (n = 147; 19.0%) and their supervision levels varied. While most students reported high confidence to perform the tasks, the activity-specific analysis revealed important gaps in preparation through university teaching. Students regularly searched for support in case of difficulty. One quarter of the variance of each preparedness dimension was explained by self-efficacy, supervision quality, amount of prior clerkship experience and nature of professional activities. Preparedness contributed to predicting perceived stress.ConclusionsThe applied three-dimensional concept of preparedness and the task-specific approach provided a detailed and meaningful view on medical students’ workplace participation and experiences in early clerkships.

Background: While literature on the theoretical value of entrustable professional activities (EPAs) for assessment is rapidly expanding, little experience exists on its application. The aims of this study are to develop and explore the utility of an EPA-based assessment tool for capturing the workplace performance of final-year medical students based on a full set of end-of-training EPAs. Methods: The tool was developed in a systematic iterative process. Twelve 12 end-of-undergraduate medical training EPAs were nested into 72 smaller EPAs and cross-mapped onto a 6-point supervision level scale, both adjusted to the context of final-year clerkships. One version was created for students' self-assessment of their ability to carry out tasks and their history of carrying out tasks, and another version was created for supervisors' assessment of students' ability to carry out tasks. The tool was administered to final-year clerkship students and their clinical supervisors to explore its utility as an assessment approach. The results were analysed using descriptive and interferential statistics. Results: We enrolled a total of 60 final-year medical students. For 33 students, ratings were provided from one supervisor and for 27 students from two supervisors. With regard to the reliability and validity of the tool, students' and supervisors' ratings showed an overall good internal consistency as well as variability between and within the EPAs. Over the full EPA range, students rated their ability to perform a task slightly higher than their task performance history and slightly lower than the supervisors' ratings. Students' self-ratings of their ability to perform a task correlated with their history in performing the task. Supervisors' ratings correlated among supervisors and not with students' ratings. Concerning educational outcomes, supervisors' average rating of students' ability to perform the EPAs without direct supervision was 64%, and key findings being double-checked. Conclusions: This study introduces a tool that is adjusted to the final-year clerkship context and can assess the workplace performance of trainees based on a full set of end-of-training EPAs. Its utility characteristics suggest that the tool may be employed as a formative and outcome-aligned approach to the assessment of final-year students before entering into residency.