Integrating Library-Related Competencies into Residency Curricula

Objectives: Health professions education focuses on ensuring that all graduates possess needed competencies. The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) sets standards and monitors the progress of medical residents as they advance toward medical practice in their specialties. Medical specialties differ on how they define and measure progress in their residents meeting their competencies within a standardized ACGME framework. Clinical librarians need to train medical residents in certain competency areas, but until now, no one has assembled these competency statements in one central place.
This project analyzes the competencies related to informatics, library, and Evidence Based Practice (EBP) skills to identify core and optional curricular elements that can be integrated into different medical specialty residencies.

Methods: The authors identified and collected key competency documents from ACGME and those specialties representing 2% or more of the residencies in the US. They compared and contrasted these competencies related to informatics, library, and EBP skills. Most competencies statements were categorized under the fifth broad ACGME competency area of “Practice Based Learning and Improvement.” The authors then used their combined years of experience as a clinical librarian, a graduate medical education associate program director, informaticist, EBP instructor, and curricular expert to design core and optional elements to meet these competencies.

Results: The authors have been developing a generic curriculum for residents that can be adapted to different specialty programs. The curriculum follows a progression from lower-level milestones to more advanced milestones. It also includes optional training modules as needed by specific specialty programs.

Conclusions: The authors will discuss their curriculum at the MLA Annual Meeting.