Assessment

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Assessment

MSc Physician Associate Studies

Assessment of Competence - General Principles

We continue to work to the existing Competence and Curriculum Framework of the Faculty of Physician Associates of the Royal College of Physicians, in accordance with the current course validation and approval.

There are three major components to the Assessment of Competence:

  • The core competences which the Physician Associate is expected to be able to demonstrate across all their clinical practice
  • The range of procedural skills in which the Physician Associate must have demonstrated competence
  • The common patient presentations and clinical conditions

Full details can be found within Competence and Curriculum Framework for the PA (CCF; DH 2006, revised 2012), which can be accessed through the Examinations webpage hosted by the Faculty of Physician Associates (FPA) at the Royal College of Physicians.

We are currently transitioning to the draft FPA curriculum 2022 (PDF, 489.5KB).

Record of Practice

Core competencies and skill acquisition form a continual thread as training progresses. This will be recorded by the student and then verified by the Medical Supervisor in the Record of Practice. 

For our first-year students this in turn will form a major part of the e-portfolio held on PebblePad. The e-portfolio is the student’s lifelong record of professional development and can include personal reflections, action planning and goal setting.

The e-portfolio is accessed by a unique log-in which will be provided to individual students. Medical Supervisors and Academic Advisors are also able to access shared sections of the document for the purposes of teaching, learning and assessment. The student's e-portfolio is not generally accessible and it is not possible to provide access through this publicly available placement information website. A summary of the areas of practice in which students are assessed is provided in the Placement Handbook for your cohort.

NB Our second-year students are continuing to use the e-paper documents listed below the PebblePad guidance for their Record of Practice.

Pebble Pad Documentation & Support

As part of their placement requirements, students will be expected to complete an electronic record of practice which is hosted on Pebble Pad.  They will be expected to complete records for the following areas:

  • Clinical skills
  • Log of hours
  • Placement Competencies
  • Capabilities in Practice

Clinical Skills

Students will need to record that they have been taught each skill, with the option to have this signed off in simulated practice.  This will be completed by the university team.

Whist on placement students are expected to try and demonstrate a variety of clinical skills.  These can be signed off by any appropriately qualified supervisor without requiring access to Pebble Pad.

Students can also record any unsuccessful or additional successful attempts in their procedure log. 

Whilst there are not mandatory clinical skill sign off for each placement, a student who has not used opportunities to practice or demonstrate clinical skills should be flagged to the course team.

Log of Hours – requires designated supervisor sign off

For each placement students are expected to maintain an accurate and comprehensive log of their activities and hours spent on placement.  They should also document which supervisor is associated with this activity.

All supervisors should be recorded in the log of hours, along with job role, contact email and professional registration number (if applicable).  This replaces the paper sign off sheets from previous cohorts.  The designated placement supervisor should have an awareness of the different supervisors the students may interact with on their placement as they need to be comfortable and confident to sign off the hours log as accurate. 

Any concerns regarding the accuracy of log of hours should be cross checked with the applicable named supervisor (e.g. junior doctor on shift) and escalated to the course team if required. 

Students are also required to document any absences from placement in this section.  Again, if there are concerns about student attendance then this should be escalated to the course team.

Please note the Log of Hours page will be locked after being signed off to avoid any amendments being made by the student.

Placement Competencies – requires designated supervisor sign off

For each placement students are required to record their designated supervisor details, including name, role, registration number and contact details. 

The student will require supervisor sign off across four different areas:

  • Knowledge
  • Clinical & Procedural Skills
  • Professional Attitudes and Behaviour
  • Overall Placement Sign Off

For each of these areas there are a number of competencies that the student need to be graded as either “achieved” or “not achieved” based on what you would expect for their stage of training.  For example, the expectations for a first-year student on their first placement would be very different to those of a second year on their final placement. 

A trajectory of expected development is included in the appendix at the end of this guide. 

If there are concerns that the student is not achieving the expected level of competence, then this should be escalated to the course team as soon as possible.

As with the log of hours, this page will be locked once signed by the designated supervisor to avoid any amendment by the student afterwards.

Capabilities in Practice

This is a space for students to reflect and add additional evidence as to how they are demonstrating the capabilities in practice.  Whilst this is not currently mandatory, it has been introduced in preparation for GMC regulation.

Portfolio and Additional Evidence

Students are strongly encouraged to maintain evidence of any extra activities (e.g. delivering presentations, attending conferences, etc) in their portfolio.

Pebble Pad Technical Support

To be able to sign off the student’s Log of Hours and Placement Competencies pages, you must have a Pebble Pad account and the student must share their portfolio with you.  We ask that the designated supervisor details are provided to the university as soon as possible so that an account can be created for you. 

We are aware that some supervisors will be unfamiliar with Pebble Pad so we will be offering additional support if required.  You can find some helpful user-guides in link below.

If you are having specific technical difficulties, then please contact the Pebble Pad support team directly for support.

MSc Physician Associate (2020 Curriculum) - Assessment Sign Off Documents (SHU):

Please note - our second-year students are continuing to use the following documents to record assessment of practice.

Process for Managing a Student who is not Progressing, including Refer and Failure of Placement Attempt

Please find guidance below on the process that will be followed if a student is not progressing in practice as expected: