OSATS requirement for 2019 ATSM
Following on from the webinar on Education in the COVID environment and beyond held in spring 2021 and accessible here:
https://vimeo.com/543131703/e80eac9cdd
We wanted to clarify that for completion of the ATSMs, it is not necessary to have 3 summative OSATS for any procedures within the ATSMs.
Pre-2019, there was no mandated requirement for three competent summative OSATs for any procedure within the ATSMs, and this did not change when the ATSMs were redrafted ready for the 2019 curriculum.
Each 2019 ATSM does have a box listing relevant procedures, each with a minimal entrustability level, but three OSATs are not mandated for these procedures.
OSATs are, however, a very valuable educational tool which optimise learning outcomes, and they should be used in a formative and summative way as much as possible.
There needs to be sufficient evidence for the relevant ATSM so that the ATSM Educational Supervisor can make a global judgement that the trainee has achieved all the capabilities within the ATSM and has achieved competence and it is expected that some OSATs will form a contribution to the totality of evidence in the ATSMs which include additional procedural skills above those addressed by the core curriculum.
Individual educational supervisors or training regions may choose to give more didactic guidance with respect to the OSATs they would expect for ‘sign off’.
If this is the case, these requirements must be measured and achievable and could be challenged in the event of a trainee being awarded a non-standard outcome because of failure to reach them.
How to complete an OSATS for a procedure which is not on the ePortfolio
There are no ePortfolio based OSATs for most of the procedures listed in the ATSMs.
Trainees wishing to complete an OSAT, formative or summative, for any of these procedures can open a new OSAT in the ePortfolio but leave the section blank which has a drop down list of the OSATs currently recognised by the eportfolio.
In the ‘title’ section they can then make clear what procedure was being performed by the trainee.
The subsequent fields within the OSATs which require completion are all generic anyway.
Guidance on how to do this is given in the webinar.
These OSATs will not be recognised by the educational supervisors report form, but can be readily attached as evidence to CiPs and be manually dragged through into the ESR (also shown on the webinar).
OSATS requirements for 2019 subspecialty curricula
Subspecialty training is different. Prior to the 2019 curriculum redraft, there were a number of procedures where three competent summative OSATs were mandated, and these could be found within the curriculum documents and the matrices of progression for each subspecialty.
This has not changed.
Three summative OSATs are still required for the same procedures as was the case prior to 2019.
Advanced Training Review and OSATS
The advanced curriculum is currently being rewritten.
It seems likely that there will be a number of clearly specified ATSM procedures where three summative competent OSATs are required.
Fair warning will be given prior to the introduction of the new advanced curriculum and allowance made for those trainees currently working on the 2019 ATSMs.
Update on endometrial ablation and ERCP OSATS
With regards to 3 summative OSATS for surgical management of retained products of conception (Obstetrics) and endometrial ablations; we will be making a submission to the GMC for endometrial ablation to be moved out of core and into the Hysteroscopy ATSM and for surgical management of retained products to be moved to ST7.
Currently, these procedures have been formally derogated by the GMC, meaning that a trainee who has not achieved the competency by the currently specified training year will be not be penalised for this.
Ultrasound guidance
The ultrasound guidance is published on the RCOG eLearning platform in the Curriculum 2019 tutorial: Resources in place to support your transfer to the new curriculum | eLearning (rcog.org.uk).