The Wicked Problem of Selection and Competency-Based Education: Applying TRIZ Inversion to the Graduate Medical Education Selection Process.

IF 3.5 2区 医学 Q1 EDUCATION, SCIENTIFIC DISCIPLINES
Perspectives on Medical Education Pub Date : 2026-09-29 eCollection Date: 2026-01-01 DOI:10.5334/pme.2596
Holly A Caretta-Weyer, Ming-Ka Chan, Mary Ellen J Goldhamer, Alan Schwartz, Teresa M Chan, Lalena M Yarris, Ian W Incoll, Arvin Damodaran, H Carrie Chen
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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Introduction: Graduate medical education (GME) selection processes may pose significant barriers to implementing competency-based health professions education (CBHPE). Current selection metrics are largely nonpredictive of future success, and the removal of clerkship grades has given rise to a shadow economy of effort focused on publications, research hours, and other activities that detract from clinical training. This misalignment between selection practices and CBHPE principles constitutes a wicked problem that requires innovative approaches to develop new solutions.

Methods: We conducted a TRIZ (Theory of Inventive Problem Solving) exercise, a Liberating Structure that challenges assumptions by asking what would make a process fail spectacularly. Eight participants representing three countries, two continents, and four medical specialties convened via video conference in October 2025. Participants served as proxies for key stakeholder groups (students, program directors, medical school leadership, and patients/society), identified elements of the worst-possible selection system, compared them to current practices, and proposed solutions.

Results: Participants identified numerous elements characterizing suboptimal selection systems, including inequitable and biased processes, arbitrary decision-making, gaming of metrics, resource-intensive processes that fail to differentiate candidates, misinformation from training sites, and prioritization of self-interest over patient needs. Many of these elements were recognized as present in current GME selection systems worldwide.

Discussion: Recommendations to align selection with CBHPE included embedding social accountability throughout selection, leveraging coproduced competency frameworks, prioritizing workforce diversity, ensuring equity in assessment and selection, incentivizing a growth mindset through a transparent learner handover, and implementing structural innovations, including preference signaling or potentially lottery systems, to better align CBHPE and selection.

选拔与能力本位教育的邪恶问题:TRIZ反演在医学研究生教育选拔中的应用。
研究生医学教育(GME)的选择过程可能对实施基于能力的卫生专业教育(CBHPE)构成重大障碍。目前的选择标准在很大程度上不能预测未来的成功,并且取消了职员等级已经导致了一种影子经济的出现,这种经济集中在出版物、研究时间和其他活动上,这损害了临床培训。这种选择实践与chepe原则之间的不一致构成了一个棘手的问题,需要创新的方法来开发新的解决方案。方法:我们进行了一个TRIZ(创造性问题解决理论)练习,这是一个解放结构,通过询问什么会导致一个过程明显失败来挑战假设。代表三个国家、两大洲和四个医学专业的八名与会者于2025年10月通过视频会议召开会议。参与者作为关键利益相关者群体(学生、项目主管、医学院领导和患者/社会)的代理人,确定最糟糕的选择系统的要素,将其与当前的做法进行比较,并提出解决方案。结果:参与者确定了许多次优选择系统的特征要素,包括不公平和有偏见的过程、武断的决策、指标博弈、未能区分候选人的资源密集型过程、来自培训地点的错误信息以及将自身利益置于患者需求之上。这些因素中有许多被认为存在于全球当前的GME选择系统中。讨论:将选拔与CBHPE结合起来的建议包括:在选拔过程中嵌入社会责任,利用共同产生的能力框架,优先考虑劳动力多样性,确保评估和选拔的公平性,通过透明的学习者移交激励成长型思维,以及实施结构性创新,包括偏好信号或潜在的抽奖系统,以更好地将CBHPE和选拔结合起来。
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来源期刊
CiteScore
5.70
自引率
8.30%
发文量
31
审稿时长
28 weeks
期刊介绍: Perspectives on Medical Education mission is support and enrich collaborative scholarship between education researchers and clinical educators, and to advance new knowledge regarding clinical education practices. Official journal of the The Netherlands Association of Medical Education (NVMO). Perspectives on Medical Education is a non-profit Open Access journal with no charges for authors to submit or publish an article, and the full text of all articles is freely available immediately upon publication, thanks to the sponsorship of The Netherlands Association for Medical Education. Perspectives on Medical Education is highly visible thanks to its unrestricted online access policy. Perspectives on Medical Education positions itself at the dynamic intersection of educational research and clinical education. While other journals in the health professional education domain orient predominantly to education researchers or to clinical educators, Perspectives positions itself at the collaborative interface between these perspectives. This unique positioning reflects the journal’s mission to support and enrich collaborative scholarship between education researchers and clinical educators, and to advance new knowledge regarding clinical education practices. Reflecting this mission, the journal both welcomes original research papers arising from scholarly collaborations among clinicians, teachers and researchers and papers providing resources to develop the community’s ability to conduct such collaborative research. The journal’s audience includes researchers and practitioners: researchers who wish to explore challenging questions of health professions education and clinical teachers who wish to both advance their practice and envision for themselves a collaborative role in scholarly educational innovation. This audience of researchers, clinicians and educators is both international and interdisciplinary. The journal has a long history. In 1982, the journal was founded by the Dutch Association for Medical Education, as a Dutch language journal (Netherlands Journal of Medical Education). As a Dutch journal it fuelled educational research and innovation in the Netherlands. It is one of the factors for the Dutch success in medical education. In 2012, it widened its scope, transforming into an international English language journal. The journal swiftly became international in all aspects: the readers, authors, reviewers and editorial board members. The editorial board members represent the different parental disciplines in the field of medical education, e.g. clinicians, social scientists, biomedical scientists, statisticians and linguists. Several of them are leading scholars. Three of the editors are in the top ten of most cited authors in the medical education field. Two editors were awarded the Karolinska Institute Prize for Research. Presently, Erik Driessen leads the journal as Editor in Chief. Perspectives on Medical Education is highly visible thanks to its unrestricted online access policy. It is sponsored by theThe Netherlands Association of Medical Education and offers free manuscript submission. Perspectives on Medical Education positions itself at the dynamic intersection of educational research and clinical education. While other journals in the health professional education domain orient predominantly to education researchers or to clinical educators, Perspectives positions itself at the collaborative interface between these perspectives. This unique positioning reflects the journal’s mission to support and enrich collaborative scholarship between education researchers and clinical educators, and to advance new knowledge regarding clinical education practices. Reflecting this mission, the journal both welcomes original research papers arising from scholarly collaborations among clinicians, teachers and researchers and papers providing resources to develop the community’s ability to conduct such collaborative research. The journal’s audience includes researchers and practitioners: researchers who wish to explore challenging questions of health professions education and clinical teachers who wish to both advance their practice and envision for themselves a collaborative role in scholarly educational innovation. This audience of researchers, clinicians and educators is both international and interdisciplinary. The journal has a long history. In 1982, the journal was founded by the Dutch Association for Medical Education, as a Dutch language journal (Netherlands Journal of Medical Education). As a Dutch journal it fuelled educational research and innovation in the Netherlands. It is one of the factors for the Dutch success in medical education. In 2012, it widened its scope, transforming into an international English language journal. The journal swiftly became international in all aspects: the readers, authors, reviewers and editorial board members. The editorial board members represent the different parental disciplines in the field of medical education, e.g. clinicians, social scientists, biomedical scientists, statisticians and linguists. Several of them are leading scholars. Three of the editors are in the top ten of most cited authors in the medical education field. Two editors were awarded the Karolinska Institute Prize for Research. Presently, Erik Driessen leads the journal as Editor in Chief. Perspectives on Medical Education is highly visible thanks to its unrestricted online access policy. It is sponsored by theThe Netherlands Association of Medical Education and offers free manuscript submission.
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