Gersten Jonker

106   Chapter 5 spend a 12 weeks sub-internship in a broad clinical specialty of their choice in which they take responsibility for a limited number of "own" patients. They expend another 6 to 12 weeks to one or two clinical electives at a sub-internship level. In addition, students do 12 to 18 weeks research in a domain of choice. They use another six weeks for mandatory training courses in research, teaching and professionalism. Instead of composing a fully individual package of rotations, students may opt for a thematic track during their transitional year that enables the development of specific competencies within a medical domain (the theme), in addition to the general competencies that graduates need. A thematic track offers focused preparation and professional orientation within the domain of medicine. Aim of the study In pursuit of a better transition to work in selected residencies and specialties, the current study aimed to evaluate to which degree a thematic final year track, geared to specialties in a limited domain, could prepare students better for clinical practice. We combined a scholarly approach to curriculum design and assessment with the collection of research data, and chose the domain of acute care. METHODS Context In 2015, we introduced an optional Acute Care Transitional Year (ACTY) at the UMC Utrecht to ease the transition to not just any postgraduate training or non-training post, but to a selected set of residencies or specialties. Per year, on average 18 students interested in acute care (about 7% of an annual cohort) enroll in the ACTY [21]. Anesthesia, cardiology, emergency medicine, intensive care medicine, and pulmonary medicine have a shared interest in acute care and faculty members of these five specialties designed and implemented the ACTY collaboratively. The three goals of the ACTY are: a) to enhance acute care learning by boosting motivation, b) to prepare graduates for clinical acute care practice, and c) to offer a focused specialty orientation. The ACTY strives to enhance learning through a coherent final year program that brings together a groupof studentswho share a profound interest in acute care. ACTY’s learning objectives are the acute care challenges recently graduated doctors in several specialties may face. The tasks, formulated as entrustable professional activities (EPAs), link the learning objectives directly to postgraduate expectations [22, 23]. The educational