Lost in translation? Postgraduate Medical Education Training Curriculum

I believe that the postgraduate medical training curriculum introduced over the past 5 or 6 years got ‘lost in translation’. Ultimately, doctors, whatever stage they are in their career, learn through working: work is the curriculum. The challenge is ensuring that the amount, range and complexity of work activity undertaken is both within the trainee’s capability and stretches them to be more capable. One way to do that is to develop a curriculum map, that captures where they have been, where they are going and where they might go next. In this way, it is possible to make explicit and surface up the learning that arises while working and to make adjustments, where needed, to offer a richer learning journey (to keep the mapping metaphor going). The map does not need to be too prescriptive; there are, after all, many possible routes to the same destination. Some trainers have a natural sense of direction, have walked the journey with trainees on many occasions and only need check in, from time to time, to make sure they are both still on track. Others may prefer to plan the itinerary much more tightly, checking in on a regular basis that all is going according to plan. This kind of mapping process, overlaid on the workplace, had real potential to guide training.

Read this previously published post here.