The AMA’s GME Competency Education Program (CEP) is not a standard requirement for graduation of ACGME accredited residency programs, nor is it a prerequisite for Board eligibility in any specialty. It is adopted by around a third of institutions, but it is by no means a requirement. It is merely one method of delivering the ACGME’s Core Competencies to residents. Since these modules are not a requirement and are an oft-quoted source of stress, aggravation, and can contribute to burnout , physicians in training should ask ourselves two critical questions: 1) Are there reasonable alternatives to satisfy ACGME requirements? 2) Is the content effective?

The benefits of the CEP are marketed to programs to reduce administrative burden. While we are all in favor of this goal, it comes at the cost of passing the buck to residents. Egregious and backhanded ancillary benefits are quoted by the AMA include “[delivery of competencies] in a way that [residents] want to learn”. Many of the 6 Competencies in the Common Program Requirements are already addressed and implemented in didactics curriculum. If they are not, programs should re-examine their curriculum to find time for implementation. The ACGME says that these competencies are conceptual in nature and demonstration of competency is already incorporated into the ACGME Milestones (Common Program Requirements Section IV.B). We ask FSU to drop these institutionally-imposed modules that are taxing residents with 29 of these unnecessary modules over the course of the PGY-1 through PGY-3 years.

The signees of this petition find these modules time consuming, an ineffective use of limited time, superfluous for the intended purpose of meeting 6 Competencies that can be demonstrated by other means, and request that they be removed from the Florida State University’s GME department list of graduation requirements. If this is not possible, we request an explanation as to why.

https://edhub.ama-assn.org/gcep