Competency‐based medical education: origins, perspectives and potentialities

This article is part of a series in Medical Education entitled ‘Dialogue’. Each publication in the series will be a transcription of an e-mail discussion about a current issue in the field held by two scholars who have approached the issue from different perspectives. For further details, see the editorial published in Med Educ 2012;46 (9):826–7. In this volume, Olle ten Cate, PhD (University Medical Centre Utrecht, the Netherlands) and Stephen Billett, PhD (Griffith University, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia) conduct an e-mail conversation on competency-based professional training in medicine. The discussion addressed its roots, significance and limitations, and extended to considerations of canonical knowledge and skill versus context-dependent ability, and legitimate peripheral participation through the development of a growing portfolio of entrustable professional activities.