In July, Associate Chief Physician Su Song, Deputy Director of the Department of Hepatobiliary Surgery of the Affiliated Hospital, took part in the inaugural cohort of the Residency Standardized Teaching Skills Training Program organized by the Sichuan Medical Association. He embarked on a 21‑day thematic training program in Toronto, Vancouver and other cities in Canada to systematically study the philosophies, teaching methodologies and evaluation systems for standardized residency training.
During the training, Su Song visited a number of medical‑education and healthcare institutions, including York University, the University of British Columbia, the Temerty Faculty of Medicine at the University of Toronto, Toronto General Hospital, Vancouver General Hospital, Mount Sinai Hospital and Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre. Through special lectures, teaching observations, workshops and on‑site exchanges, he gained an in‑depth understanding of Canada’s residency training system.
Competency‑Based Medical Education (CBME) left a deep impression on Su Song throughout his studies. This model places greater emphasis on what residents are capable of accomplishing independently. Using competency frameworks for physicians and Entrustable Professional Activities (EPAs), it integrates requirements for professional competence, communication and collaboration, health advocacy, academic capacity and professional professionalism into day‑to‑day clinical practice and assessment procedures.
At relevant teaching workshops, Su Song focused on learning how to convert residents’ routine clinical tasks into observable and assessable teaching activities. He believes that embedding teaching assessment into the full spectrum of clinical work enables more objective monitoring of trainees’ competency development and provides evidence for individualized residency training.
Simulation‑based teaching constituted another core component of this training. At institutions such as Mount Sinai Hospital and Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, apart from high‑fidelity simulators, simple task trainers, standardized patients and AI‑powered voice simulation are widely deployed for training in clinical skills, doctor‑patient communication and emergency management. In particular, structured feedback and debriefing mechanisms following simulation exercises offer residents a safe environment for repeated practice.
In terms of assessment frameworks, Canadian residency training attaches great importance to formative evaluation. Repeated, continuous and targeted clinical observations together with real‑time feedback help build competency profiles for trainees. Relevant committees then make comprehensive judgements on each trainee’s training progress. According to Su Song, the “Observation‑Documentation‑Feedback” workflow embedded in daily clinical practice offers valuable references for optimizing process‑oriented assessment in domestic residency training.
While overseas, Su Song reflected deeply on the characteristics of Chinese and Canadian medical‑education systems. He holds that proven foreign experience cannot be copied wholesale; local adaptation must be carried out in light of China’s healthcare system, disease spectrum, clinical workload and hospital realities. For residency teaching in hepatobiliary surgery, for instance, more clinically‑grounded teaching and assessment approaches can be further explored centering on diagnosis and treatment of prevalent diseases, surgical grading and post‑specific competencies.
This overseas program has broadened perspectives in medical education and brought new insights for the hospital’s standardized residency training. Going forward, drawing on real‑world clinical‑teaching practices, Su Song will actively promote the application of these concepts and methodologies in residency mentoring, simulation‑based teaching and process‑driven assessment, accumulating practical experience for the hospital to further improve the quality of standardized residency training.
