Guidelines and Templates
The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Affairs (ACGME) has Common Program Requirements that all accredited programs must fulfill. In addition to these common requirements, each Residency Review Committee (RRC) has specialty-specific requirements. Program Directors need to know the common and specific requirements for their program.
A curriculum is based on six competencies:
1. Medical Knowledge,
2. Patient Care,
3. Practice-based Learning and Improvement,
4. Systems-based Practice,
5. Communications and Interpersonal Skills, and
6. Professionalism.
Curriculum Content
A program description and curriculum should be provided to faculty, trainees and applicants, indicating which topics, techniques, etc., will be taught and how; specific goals and objectives for the fellow; and target volume of certain cases, procedures, clinic visits, etc., as applicable. The content should include the following elements:
Program Description
• Overall educational goals
• Program duration
• Schedule, format and content of didactic activities
• Clinical rotations and other types of clinical activities; approximate time devoted to each (e.g., ½-day per week continuity clinic, research electives, rotations in other specialties and/or at other institutions)
• description of research opportunities, if applicable
Overall Goals
• To prepare graduates to ... (e.g., practice competently and independently as …; succeed in an academic career; conduct research in ...; etc.)
• Description of how the program strives to attain these goals, and by what methods
Rotations
• Goals and objectives for all six competencies for each rotation at each level of training
• Teaching and learning methods
• Available resources and setting (e.g., ambulatory, lab, OR, etc.)
• Evaluation mechanism and methods
Schedule
• A template/typical weekly schedule of activities
• A block rotation for the training year(s) if there are different rotations
Supervision Policy
The ACGME requires that all programs have a written supervision policy and expects specific terms to be used to describe the type of supervision. Supervision policies should use the following terminology and indicate how the level of supervision residents will have is based on the year in training or another objective measure.
Direct Supervision: the supervising physician is physically present with the trainee.
Indirect Supervision:
a. With direct supervision immediately available. The supervising physician is within the immediate area and available to be present with the trainee immediately.
b. With direct supervision available. The supervising physician does not need to be physically near but must be immediately available by phone or other electronic means.
Oversight: The supervising physician is not available during the encounter but available to review and provide feedback later.
Other Learning Sessions
A schedule of core didactic and other learning experiences, with objectives for each series of conferences or experiences (e.g., Journal Club, simulation program)
Evaluations
• By what manner (i.e., written or verbal), and how frequently, the program director and faculty will evaluate the trainees
• By what manner, and how frequently, the trainees will evaluate the program director, the faculty and the rotations and other educational experiences, including didactics
ACGME Requirements for Evaluations
Faculty must complete a formative evaluation for every trainee they worked with after each rotation. The evaluation should reflect the performance of the trainee on that rotation and offer suggestions for improvement. The trainee must have access to the evaluation data.
The trainee must complete a confidential evaluation of each faculty member they worked with for each rotation.
The Program Director or designee must meet with every trainee at least twice a year to review the trainee’s evaluation and progress in the program.
The program must be evaluated by the trainees and faculty once a year. These evaluations should be used as the basis of an annual review of the Program from which comes an action plan for Program improvements.
This page was reviewed 3/31/21.