Accreditation of Graduate Medical Education Programmes: One size fits all-or does it?

Worldwide, medical education, both at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels, is in a process of evolution. Oman has adopted outcome- and competency-based curricula in graduate medical education programmes, and is currently seeking accreditation with the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education International (ACGME-I).1 We believe that is the way forward. In fact, many medical schools have adopted and are currently adopting outcome- and competency-based curricula, while many others employ the time-tested methods of apprenticeship and mentorship in their graduate medical education programmes. Not only are the two models of teaching and learning different, but efforts at ‘fine-tuning’ have led to a whole range of different options along the spectrum. Thus, while the medical education systems vary from one country to the other, from one region to the other in the same country, and even from one medical school to the other, there are advantages in each system. It is evident that many of the ‘core competencies’ of medical graduates and postgraduate doctors are developed by different training methods, and stimulated by a variety of accreditation systems.