The American Board of Surgery (ABS) has unveiled the 15 proposed core Entrustable Professional Activities (EPAs) that will be evaluated in vascular surgery residents.
They are: cerebrovascular disease; dialysis access; traumatic/iatrogenic vascular injury; peripheral artery aneurysms; claudication; chronic limb-threatening ischemia; acute limb ischemia; amputation; chronic venous disease; acute thromboembolic venous disease; asymptomatic aortoiliac aneurysm; symptomatic/ ruptured aortoiliac aneurysm; chronic mesenteric ischemia; acute mesenteric ischemia; and type-B aortic dissection.
Some three years of work have gone into creating the EPAs for vascular surgery. The work was a collaboration between the Vascular Surgery Board (VSB) of the ABS, the Association of Program Directors in Vascular Surgery (APDVS) and the ABS itself. A vascular surgery EPA pilot is set to launched this month.
EPAs are a slightly different version of the Norwegian concept of “entrustment” as a “core way of thinking about when a healthcare professional is ready to be unsupervised,” explained Brigitte Smith, MD, chair of the VSB EPA Committee and a VSB director, explained in an interview with Vascular Specialist last year.
Smith presented on EPAs at the APDVS spring meeting in Rosemont, Illinois (April 5–6) ahead of the launch of the pilot. The vascular surgery EPAs are currently in a review process and expected to be implemented in October.
