Entrusted Professional Activities - The Path from Competencies to Professionalism

Entrustable Professional Activities (EPAs) are a set of professional activities that can be entrusted to a student/resident to perform independently or with minimal supervision after he or she has demonstrated the competencies required to perform these activities.

The EPA concept intends to integrate different competencies within relevant and recognizable contexts and in this way to link the educational and medical worlds.

       Entrustment is the clinically meaningful summative judgment based on a rich source of information about the quantity and quality of a trainee’s professional performance. Granting entrustment is a clinically recognizable step that resonates with the former master- apprenticeship model.

The implementation and assessment of entrustable professional activities requires a well-thought-out syllabus, an organized clinical environment, and appropriately trained  personnel.