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ecfmg pathway 6
abim
Applicant’s clinical skills must be observed and evaluated by licensed physicians in six real, in-person clinical encounters using the ECFMG Mini-CEX for Pathway 6.
- Each encounter must be evaluated by an individual licensed physician who meets the Criteria for Acceptable Physician Evaluators below.
- Each encounter must meet the Criteria for Acceptable Clinical Encounters below.
- Each individual physician evaluator may evaluate no more than two of the applicant’s six encounters.
- An electronic ECFMG Mini-CEX for Pathway 6 must be submitted to ECFMG for each clinical encounter by the evaluating physician through ECFMG’s Clinical Skills Evaluation and Attestation Portal.
- For all six clinical encounters, applicant must obtain an acceptable score in each of the four clinical skills components evaluated using the Mini-CEX for Pathway 6: Medical Interviewing Skills, Physical Examination Skills, Professionalism/Communication Skills, and Clinical Reasoning & Judgment.
The ABIM Mini-Clinical Evaluation Exercise for Trainees (Mini-CEX) is intended to facilitate formative assessment of core clinical skills. It can be used by faculty as a routine, seamless evaluation of trainees in any setting.
The Mini-CEX is a 10- to 20-minute direct observation assessment or “snapshot” of a trainee-patient interaction. Faculty are encouraged to perform at least one per clinical rotation. To be most useful, faculty should provide timely and specific feedback to the trainee after each assessment of a trainee-patient encounter.
Document your observations using the Mini-CEX Direct Observation Tool (pdf), which can also be distributed for demonstration during faculty workshops, staff meetings, orientation and training sessions. Note that paper copies of the Mini-CEX are no longer available from ABIM.