Journal of Community Medicine & Health Education
Open Access

Mini Review

Competencies, Milestones and Observable Activities: Practical Implications for an Undergraduate Medical Education Program

Department of Clinical Internal Medicine, Ohio State University, Ohio, USA

*Corresponding Author:

Katherine Walsh, M.D.
Assistant Professor, Department of Clinical Internal Medicine, Ohio State University
A350A Starling Loving Hall, 320 West 10th Ave, Columbus, Ohio, 43210, USA
Tel: 3522135219
Fax: 3522135219
E-mail: katherine.walsh@osumc.edu

Received date: May 18, 2017; Accepted date: May 31, 2017; Published date: June 09, 2017

Citation: DeWaay DJ, Duckett AA, Friesinger MK, Ledford CH, Walsh KJ (2017) Competencies, Milestones and Observable Activities: Practical Implications for an Undergraduate Medical Education Program. J Community Med Health Educ 7:524. doi:10.4172/2161-0711.1000524

Copyright: © 2017 DeWaay DJ, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Problem: Although many medical schools describe themselves as being competency based, the use of milestones is still a new concept in undergraduate medical education (UME).

Intervention: In the 2012-2013 academic year the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) and The Ohio State University College of Medicine (OSUCOM) independently implemented milestone-based innovations in the internal medicine core clerkships intended to improve teaching and measure student progress across the clerkship. The programs were interested in the feasibility and educational impact of the use of milestones in the clerkship curriculum.

Context: This curricular change was implemented in two third year Internal Medicine clerkship rotations at two large academic tertiary care medical schools.

Outcome: Milestones were successfully integrated into both clerkships as measured by improved or steadily excellent student evaluation of the courses. Student performance on exams or clinical assessments was unchanged.

Lessons learned: A milestone-based system can be successfully integrated into 3rd year Internal Medicine Clerkships. This type of system may be a way to improve clarity of objectives. However, the transition to a milestonebased curriculum requires increased faculty time and a need for direct observation of students.

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