Theme
Portfolios and ePortfolios
Category
Portfolios
INSTITUTION
McMaster University
Overall paediatric residents at McMaster perceive portfolios as useful tools for tracking professional development which helps them to identify and achieve their career goals. The major drawback highlighted was that of time. Where, similar to the literature, paediatric residents felt portfolios were too time consuming to maintain. Requests to make the portfolio electronic may help to improve the time demands and efficiency of cultivating one throughout a busy residency.
Despite the literature’s suggestion that reflective practice improves physician self awareness, paediatric residents at McMaster perceived reflections less favourably. More promising, however, is the increasing appreciation for meta-cognition in developing advocacy skills and in resolving difficult situations and ethical dilemmas with progression from junior to senior residency. This would suggest that through training thinking evolves and matures allowing residents to become more reflective in their practice. In addition, the personal nature of reflections should be treated with sensitivity and confidentiality if we are to expect residents to divulge their perceived weaknesses and frustrations genuinely without fear of repercussion.
The role of a physician has evolved from a ‘medical expert’ to encompass those of a communicator, collaborator, manager, health advocate, scholar, and professional, as outlined in CanMEDS by the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada. The assessment of knowledge as a ‘medical expert’ is less equivocal than assessing proficiency at the other expected competencies. The learning portfolio is one method that is becoming popular worldwide to more efficiently track and assess intrinsic competencies. However, there are few reports on resident perceptions of this process, and almost none specific to paediatric residents.
The Paediatric Residency Program at McMaster University implemented learning portfolios in 2008, with the purpose of guiding a resident’s progress through reflective learning and by providing them a means to record their evaluations, learning contracts, activities and accomplishments by CanMEDS roles, thereby helping to demonstrate the competencies achieved. To determine the usefulness of the learning portfolio as well as resident perception of and attitude towards it, a survey was sent to paediatric residents at McMaster.
Special thanks to Ms. Sharyn Kreuger for survey design and administration and Dr.Kelly Dore for statistical analysis.
References
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4. Royal College of Physicians andSurgeons of Canada. “CanMEDS: better standards, better physicians, better care.” Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada. 2012. http://www.royalcollege.ca/portal/page/portal/rc/canmeds (accessed 2012 June).
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9. Royal College of General Practitioners. “Portfolio-based learning in general practice: report of a working group on higher professional education.” Occaisional paper 63, 1993.
10. van Tartwijk, J, E Driessen, K Stokking, and C van der Vleuten. “Factors influencing the successful introduction of portfolios.” Qual Higher Educ 13, no. 1 (2007): 69-79.
11. Ladhani, M. “Resources for Residents.” McMaster Pediatrics Residency Program. 2008. http://www.macpeds.com/documents/MacPedsPortfolio.pdf (accessed 2012 January).
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13. Davis, M, G Ponnamperuma, and J Ker. “Student perceptions of a porfolio assessment process.” Medical Education 43 (2009): 89-98.