Your Freshly-Graduated Pediatrician May Not Be Ready

Raising many questions about whether the U.S. training model is fit-for-purposes.

The U.S. residency training model a little bit different than some other models around the world. Obviously, jumping directly into specialty training from medical school is one significant feature contributing to its outlier status. The other is in its fixed-length training, followed by high-stakes examinations upon completion – as opposed to more-flexible, competency-based stages in some other pathways.

This means every resident receives roughly the same training experience for a predetermined length of time – and, then, ready-or-not, out of the nest!

In this study published in Pediatrics, let’s see how faculty at pediatric training programs rated their trainees readiness for independent practice across 17 “entrustable professional activities”:

These are subjective impressions of competency, not part of a structured rubric for evaluation, but certainly of concern – particularly as the initial certification examination pass rates have dropped to 82% as of 2023.

It may be the case some of these clinicians truly never would reach such sufficient standard as to practice independently, but the vast majority certainly should – and this leads us back to questions, again, regarding whether the U.S. training model is indeed fit-for-purposes.