ABSTRACT
How do you become a good doctor in the 21st century, in the era of information technology, where you need to stay current with published literature and use it to improve patient outcomes?
The American Board of Pediatrics (ABP), the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), and the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) work together to develop measures to assess competence of physicians during residency programs and maintain this competence during years of medical practice through lifelong learning. Since the 1990s, these organizations have attempted to evaluate medical professionals systematically; to nd reasons for unexplained variations in medical practice, health outcomes, inadequate care, and medical errors; and to make system improvements [1]. They also dened six general competencies for physician’s excellence: patient care, medical knowledge, professionalism, systems-based practice, practice-based learning and improvement, and interpersonal and communication skills. The implementation of these competencies brought a change in the education of residents and the recertication of practitioners [2,3].
