While not all graduates will become experts, all graduates should be positioned to develop expertise. They are not the same. Expertise only develops in the first circumstance. It is highly dependent on the application of knowledge gained as one learns from experience. Assessment which extends to the reinvestment of freed-up resources shapes the formation of life skills and habits that make the development of expertise a possibility.
Expertise is greater than the sum of competencies.
The greatest potential for the development of expertise may be seen as a combination of knowledge, problem-solving and the propensity to turn experience into learning, all orchestrated into a functional whole. A number of sources have described the characteristics which serve the knowledgeable problem-solver well. A number of sources also have described the characteristics which make for effective independent learning. An integration of the two is essential for describing the developing expert. Undergraduate medical education should be aimed at producing the developing expert.