A new Competency-Based Veterinary Education (CBVE) framework unveiled Saturday at the 2018 conference of the Association of American Veterinary Medical Colleges (AAVMC) represents three years of intensive work and lays the framework for schools to develop a competency-based curriculum.
It is probably the most significant work of the organization to date and facilitates the shift from faculty-centered teaching to student-centered learning, said Chief Executive Officer Andy Maccabe. “We don’t consider this product to be a perfect, final product,” he added. Instead, it will be updated and revised as educators implement it, and all schools are invited to adapt the framework.
The framework encompasses 9 Domains of Competence with corresponding competencies. These include:
- Clinical Reasoning and Decision-making
- Individual Animal Care and Management
- Animal Population Care and Management
- Public Health
- Communication
- Collaboration
- Professionalism and Professional Identity
- Financial and Practice Management
- Scholarship
In addition, the framework is accompanied by Entrustable Professional Activities (EPAs) or essential tasks that veterinary medical students can be trusted to perform with limited supervision in a given context and with regulatory requirements, once sufficient competence has been demonstrated. The 8 EPAs include:
- Gather a history, perform an examination, and create a prioritized differential diagnosis list
- Develop a diagnostic plan and interpret results
- Develop and implement a management/treatment plan
- Recognize a patient requiring urgent or emergent care and initiate evaluation and management
- Formulate relevant questions and retrieve evidence to advance care
- Perform a common surgical procedure on a stable patient, including pre-operative and post-operative management
- Perform general anesthesia and recovery of a stable patient, including monitoring and support
- Formulate recommendations for preventive healthcare
The EPAs are accompanied by descriptions of activities, relevant domains, and elements within the activity. AAVMC conference attendees from our college look forward to sharing more information upon their return.