Because achieving and maintaining competency is a life-long endeavor, medical communities are necessary at all stages of professional life. Thus a medical school will have responsibility to help individuals develop the initial view of the medical profession and to acquire the basic knowledge necessary for fulfilling the purpose of the profession. Equally important are the attitudes and effective dispositions which are an integral part of medical competency which should also be initiated in these formative years, Thus, the importance of having role models of total medical competency as members of the medical communities engaged in initial formation of physicians. The convention agendas of various speciality groups might be analyzed with this more integral responsibility in mind. Even if individuals assume responsibility for their professional development and even if the various medical societies are conscious of their responsibility to enable members to develop the necessary attitudes and knowledge, evaluation of competency will still be required.
Accountability is an integral factor in developing competency.
Current dissatisfaction with this system, however, has led the federal and state governments to intervene in evaluation as the aforementioned conference reported. It will also have the challenge of determining whether the social end spiritual goals of the patient were prominent in the formation of practical medical decisions. No small order, this. While some may challenge the foregoing concept of medical competency and the plan to evaluate it, let us realize that concepts of competency offered in the recent past have proven inadequate, as have the methods utilized to evaluate competency.