Finally finished! National Competence Based Catalogues of Learning Objectives for Undergraduate Medical Education (NKLM) and Dental Education (NKLZ) ready for trial

Finally finished! Earlier this June, the National Competence Based Catalogues of Learning Objectives for UndergraduateMedical Education (NKLM) andDental Education (NKLZ) were passed with overwhelming agreement at the annual meeting of the Association of Medical Faculties in Germany (MFT) [http://www.mft-online.de/files/pm_ nklm-nklz_2015-07-27.pdf, cited 2015-08-03] after nearly six years of development. The catalogues describe the competencies students of medical or dental degrees in Germany should have acquired by the time they graduate. They weremade freely available online not long ago at www.nklm.de (www.nklz.de respectively). What were the starting points for the development process? On the one hand the institute tasked with the execution of the written licensing examinations (Institut für Medizinische und Pharmazeutische Prüfungsfragen, IMPP) has long provided catalogues which list topics to be assessed viamultiple choice tests. Butmuch remained unclear. They list diseases and leading symptoms relevant for the clinical subjects but without elucidating what knowledge and which abilities a newly licensed physician should have exactly – i.e. listing diabetes without mentioning interdisciplinary tasks in secondary prevention, communication with patients and relatives, and collaboration with diabetes educators. The NKLM does not order its content by subject or organ; subjects associated with an item are considered suggestions, leaving themapping of competencies and local departments responsible for their mediation to the individual faculties. To what extent should doctor-patient communication be mastered and in which contexts?Working in professional teams? Skills of scholarship and critical appraisal of studies? Experience in conducting research including literature searches, developing research questions and hypotheses? All this content and competencies indeed had already been identified by faculties and were being conveyed to a certain extent. Many countries already provide competence-based descriptions of medical programs most notably Canada, the Netherlands and Switzerland. These served as reference and a basis for discussion in the development of NKLM. In 2009, the Society for Medical Education (Gesellschaft für Medizinische Ausbildung, GMA) and the Association of Medical Faculties in Germany (Medizinischer Fakultätentag, MFT) were commissioned by the Standing Conference ofMinisters of Education and Cultural Affairs’s Higher Education Committee (Hochschulausschuss der