Practical Guide to the Assessment of Clinical Competence

**Selected for 2026 Doody's Core Titles in Medical Education**

Offering a multifaceted, practical approach to the complex topic of clinical assessment, Practical Guide to the Assessment of Clinical Competence, 3rd Edition, is designed to help medical educators employ better assessment methods, tools, and models directly into their training programs. World-renowned editors and expert contributing authors provide hands-on, authoritative guidance on outcomes-based assessment in clinical education, presenting a well-organized, diverse combination of methods you can implement right away. This thoroughly revised edition is a valuable resource for developing, implementing, and sustaining effective systems for assessing clinical competence in medical school, residency, and fellowship programs.

• Helps medical educators and administrators answer complex, ongoing, and critical questions in today’s changing medical education system: Is this undergraduate or postgraduate medical student prepared and able to move to the next level of training? To be a competent and trusted physician?
• Provides practical suggestions and assessment approaches that can be implemented immediately in your training program, tools that can be used to assess and measure clinical performance, overviews of key educational theories, and strengths and weaknesses of every method
• Covers assessment techniques, frameworks, high-quality assessment of clinical reasoning and procedural competence, psychometrics, and practical approaches to feedback
• Includes expanded coverage of fast-moving areas where concepts now have solid research and data that support practical ways to connect judgments of ability to outcomes―including work-based assessments, clinical competency committees, milestones and entrustable professional assessments (EPAs), and direct observation
• Offers examples of assessment instruments along with suggestions on how you can apply these methods and instruments in your own setting, as well as guidelines that apply across the medical education spectrum
• Includes online access to videos of medical interviewing scenarios and more, downloadable assessment tools, and detailed faculty guidelines
• An eBook version is included with purchase. The eBook allows you to access all of the text, figures, and references, with the ability to search, make notes and highlights, and have content read aloud

As Chief, Research, Milestone Development and Evaluation Officer of the ACGME (Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education) and Senior Vice President for Quality Research and Academic Affairs at the American Board of Internal Medicine and American Board of Internal Medicine Foundation, he is on the cutting edge of assessment and evaluation requirements present and future. He is also Professor Adjunct of Medicine at Yale University. Prior to joining the ABIM in 2004, he was the was Associate Program Director, Yale Primary Care Internal Medicine Residency Program, Director of Student Clinical Assessment, Yale School of Medicine, Director of Faculty Development, Department of Medicine, and Assistant Director for the Yale Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program. Prior to joining Yale in 2000, he served as division chief of General Internal Medicine at the National Naval Medical Center. His research interests include interventions to improve quality of care and methods in the evaluation of clinical competence. Dr. Holmobe also teaches a 2-3 day course at various hubs around the country which includes a comprehensive syllabus around practical assessment techniques. The first edition of the book was based on this successful intensive faculty development course, which itself was rigorously studied in randomized controlled trials, and now includes a copy of the text as part of the tuition.

A Professor of Medicine and Pathology; Director, Graduate Programs in Health Professions Education (HPE); Director, Introduction to Clinical Reasoning Course at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, and Deputy Editor for Research for Academic Medicine, Dr. Durning is devoted to improving medical and health professions education and is considered a global leader in clinical reasoning. He is a prolific researcher and writer and is currently working on another book with Elsevier (recently Transmitted to Production) on how to carry out survey-based research in clinical education.