There has also been an impact on trainees in terms of examinations. Several mandatory summative postgraduate examinations and exit specialist examinations have been postponed or cancelled. This has provoked anxiety in residents as they wonder whether they would be allowed to complete their training. Some medical schools in the United Kingdom have done away with their final examinations, citing student competency assessments during training as being sufficient reflection of ability [4]. This does bring to the forefront the continued debate of the role of a high-stakes summative assessment versus continual assessments. There is a push to reduce the weightage of high-stakes summative assessments to a programmatic one in line with a shift towards competency-based education [5]. This requires a change in perspective by membership colleges and residency faculty. The use of a portfolio might gain renewed interest as well [6]. The alternative is to take adequate precaution. For example, the emergency medicine specialty in Singapore continued with their written examinations, but with strict segregation of candidates from different institutions in different rooms. Exams could also use simulators or standardized patients instead of real patients. The respective specialty residency advisory committees would need to review and recommend modifications to training requirements taking into consideration core competencies for the new training environment and constraints present. This pandemic is likely to spark intense discussions into what constitutes good assessment, and how it can best be done [7].
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