2019 Curriculum Action Toolkit

The COMSEP General Pediatric Clerkship Curriculum was first published in 1995, with modifications in 2002 and again in 2005. Since the last revision in 2005, the national educational landscape has changed significantly, with greater focus on anchoring objectives to core competencies, restructuring of clinical teaching and clerkship experiences, and earlier introduction of patient contact now common across medical schools. The focus of education has moved more towards outcomes, with national standards such as milestones and now entrustable professional activities (EPA’s) anchoring curriculum development and assessment of postgraduate (and to a limited extent undergraduate) learners. The approach to patient care is changing, reflecting a more quality outcomes approach with better integration of health care teams and systems.

In order to develop the next generation of physicians to care for pediatric patients, comprehensive updating of the COMSEP General Pediatric Clerkship Curriculum was needed. The Curriculum Revision Action Team was then created to lead this effort.


The vision through which the curriculum revision process was undertaken, was to provide a basis for an international standard of high-quality education for medical students in pediatrics. Through this vision, five guiding principles were written, discussed, and revised to inform the mission of the curriculum revision:

1. Skills, attitudes, and knowledge required to train ALL physicians to safely care for children
2. Flexible to meet different educational environments
3. Follow well-established curriculum development principles
4. Usable by both the educator and the student (both teacher-centric and student-centric)
5. Align with international education standards

Within this updated 2019 Curriculum Action Toolkit you will find several sections of materials including “Professional Basics and Professional attributes” (what students are expected to have attained prior to the clerkship experiences) and Clinical Domain Objectives Mapped to Foundational Goals and Objectives. There is also an appendix with the clinical domain objectives (Well-child, Acutely-ill child, Child with chronic healthcare needs) mapped to different subject areas. “Foundational” refers to those objectives that should be included in every pediatric clerkship regardless of settings or duration. “Core” refers to those objectives that should ideally be within every pediatric clerkship (but may depend a bit on local resources) and “supplemental” refers to those objectives that can be utilized for longer pediatric clerkships, longitudinal experiences etc. (but is NOT specifically meant to be targeted for Sub-I experiences as there is a separate fourth year curriculum).