The evolution of medical education, from a time-based to a competency-based platform, began nearly 30 years ago and continues to slowly take shape. The development of valid and reproducible assessment tools is the first step. Medical educators across specialties acknowledge the challenges and remain motivated to develop a relevant, generalizable, and measurable system. The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) remains committed to its responsibility to the public by assuring that the process and outcome of graduate medical education in the nation’s residency programs produce competent, safe, and compassionate doctors. The Milestones Project is the ACGME’s current strategy in the evolution to a competency-based system, which allows each specialty to develop its own set of subcompetencies and 5-level progression, or milestones, along a continuum of novice to expert. The education community has now had nearly 5 years of experience with these rubrics. While not perfect, Milestones 1.0 provided important foundational information and insights. The first iteration of the Anesthesiology Milestones highlighted some mismatch between subcompetencies and current and future clinical practices. They have also highlighted challenges with assessment and evaluation of learners, and the need for faculty development tools. Committed to an iterative process, the ACGME assembled representatives from stakeholder groups within the Anesthesiology community to develop the second generation of Milestones. This special article describes the foundational data from Milestones 1.0 that was useful in the development process of Milestones 2.0, the rationale behind the important changes, and the additional tools made available with this iteration.

Resident focus groups recommended that feedback be timely and specific and be structured around a tool. A customized online feedback tool was developed and implemented. Mapping of the free-text feedback comments may assist in assessing milestones. Use of the feedback tool was lower than expected, which may indicate that it is just 1 of many implementation steps required for behavioral and culture change to support a learning environment with frequent and useful feedback.

Introduction. Millennial resident learners may benefit from innovative instructional methods. The goal of this study is to assess the impact of a new daily, 15 minutes on one anesthesia keyword, lecture series given by faculty member each weekday on resident postrotation evaluation scores. Methods. A quasi-experimental study design was implemented with the residents' rotation evaluations for the 24-month period ending by 7/30/2013 before the new lecture series was implemented which was compared to the 14-month period after the lecture series began on 8/1/2013. The primary endpoint was “overall teaching quality of this rotation.” We also collected survey data from residents at clinical rotations at two other different institutions during the same two evaluation periods that did not have the education intervention. Results. One hundred and thirty-one residents were eligible to participate in the study. Completed surveys ranged from 77 to 87% for the eight-question evaluation instrument. On a 5-point Likert-type scale the mean score on “overall teaching quality of this rotation” increased significantly from 3.9 (SD 0.8) to 4.2 (SD 0.7) after addition of the lecture series, whereas the scores decreased slightly at the comparison sites. Conclusion. Rotation evaluation scores for overall teaching quality improved with implementation of a new structured slide daily lectures series.

Formal training in the subspecialty of pediatric anesthesiology began >60 years ago. Over the years, the duration and clinical work has varied, but what has stayed constant is a mission to develop clinically competent and professionally responsible pediatric anesthesiologists. Since accreditation in 1997, there has been additional guidance by the Accreditation Council on Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) and greater accountability to the public that we, indeed, are producing competent and professional pediatric anesthesiologists. This has been influenced by the slow evolution from time-based educational curriculum to a competency-based paradigm. As with all ACGME-accredited specialties, education leaders in pediatric anesthesiology first convened in 2014 to design specialty-specific developmental trajectories within the framework of the 6 core competencies, known as milestones, on which fellows were to be tracked during the 1-year fellowship. With 5 years of implementation, and substantial data and feedback, it has become clear that an iterative improvement was necessary to mirror the evolution of the profession. It was evident that the community required brevity and clarity in the next version of the milestones and required additional resources for assessment and faculty development. We describe here the methodology and considerations of our working group, guided by ACGME, in the rewriting of the milestones. We also provide suggestions for implementation and collaboration to support the education and assessment of pediatric anesthesiology fellows across the country.

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