The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education’s (ACGME) December 2020 update to its Milestones framework reflects an increased emphasis on trainee feedback in the evaluation process.

In developing the 2.0 version of Milestones, which help training programs assess various competencies demonstrated by residents and fellows as they progress through their education, ACGME recognized trainees as being key stakeholders in the development process, said Bhavinkumar D. Dalal, MD, FCCP. In contrast to Milestones 1.0, at least one trainee was asked to participate in each specialty’s Milestones 2.0 work group.

“Although they are separate entities, evaluation and feedback are intimately related, and as the Milestones are changed, evaluation and feedback are also evolving,” said Dr. Dalal, associate professor and fellowship director of pulmonary and critical care at the Oakland University William Beaumont School of Medicine in Rochester, MI. “The new Milestones were supposed to be implemented by July 2021, but many programs are struggling to implement, as their systemwide evaluation processes need to be changed.”

Dr. Dalal will chair the session, Evaluation and Feedback Are Two Sides of One Coin, on Sunday, October 16, from 2:15 PM – 3:15 PM, in Room 209A. During the session, a panel of pulmonary and critical care medicine (PCCM) program directors will discuss the key changes in Milestones 2.0 and the challenges that PCCM residency and fellowship programs face in implementing the new Milestones.

Panelists include Kristin Burkart, MD, MS, FCCP, professor of medicine and director of the Pulmonary and Critical Care Fellowship Training Program at Columbia University Irving Medical Center in New York City; Hans Lee, MD, FCCP, associate professor of medicine and interventional pulmonary fellowship director at Johns Hopkins Medicine in Baltimore; and Kanta Velamuri, MD, MBBS, FCCP, associate professor of pulmonary, critical care, and sleep medicine at Baylor College of Medicine and associate director of graduate medical and dental education at the Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center in Houston.

“This is a very important topic, and I hope that people who attend the session will leave with a better understanding of how they can incorporate the new Milestones 2.0 model into their evaluation system, how they can define the appropriate role of the clinical competency committee at their institution, and how to implement evidence-based models for providing assessment feedback,” Dr. Dalal said. “Importantly, the new Milestones reflect a cycle between the feedback and the evaluation that goes back and forth. Improve the performance review, improve the framework for feedback, and the evaluation process will improve.”