From principles to practice: Implementation of entrustable professional activities (EPAs) for surgical pathology residency education in a large academic hospital

Christopher Felicelli; Alcino Gama; Yevgen Chornenkyy; Bonnie Choy; Luis Z Blanco Jr; Jorge E Novo

doi:10.1016/j.acpath.2023.100097

From principles to practice: Implementation of entrustable professional activities (EPAs) for surgical pathology residency education in a large academic hospital

Acad Pathol. 2023 Nov 20;10(4):100097. doi: 10.1016/j.acpath.2023.100097. eCollection 2023 Oct-Dec.

Authors

Christopher Felicelli¹, Alcino Gama¹, Yevgen Chornenkyy¹, Bonnie Choy¹, Luis Z Blanco Jr¹, Jorge E Novo¹

Affiliation

¹ Department of Pathology, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, IL, USA.

Abstract

Over the past decade, competency-based medical education (CBME) has gained momentum in the United States to develop trainees into independent and confident physicians by the end of their training. Entrustable professional activities (EPAs) are an established methodology for assessing trainee development through an outcomes-driven rather than a time-based model. While EPAs have been utilized as an assessment tool for CBME in Europe and Canada, their validation and implementation in some medical specialties has occurred more recently in the United States. Pediatrics was the first specialty in the US to conduct a large-scale UME-GME pilot. Pathology Residency EPAs were published in 2018; however, implementation in training programs has been slow. We have piloted EPAs in our residency program's surgical pathology rotation and propose a unique set of 4 surgical pathology EPAs to track trainee preparedness for independent practice.

Keywords: Competency-based medical education; Entrustable professional activities; Graduated responsibility; Medical education; Surgical pathology.