Developing a professional approach to work-based assessments in rheumatology.

ABSTRACT

This chapter discusses how doctors in key European countries develop and maintain professional standards of clinical knowledge in their specialism, rheumatology, with particular reference to how they are assessed in the workplace. The authors discuss key educational theories related to learning and assessment, including experiential learning, reflective practice, how formative and summative assessments drive experiential learning and the essential principles of reliability and validity. This chapter also considers the challenge of ensuring that professional attitudes towards assessment and reflective practice are developed alongside cognitive and practical skills, with reference to current frameworks, including the UK and North America. The chapter lists, describes and explains the main summative assessments used in postgraduate medicine in the UK. We advocate the development of the professional reflective-practitioner attitude as the best way of approaching the range of work-based assessments that trainees need to engage in. Our account concludes by briefly discussing the barriers that may impede professional approaches to assessing competence in rheumatology. A summary states how individual practitioners may contribute to a more effective process in their roles as assessors and trainees.