CanMEDS-Family Medicine
A Competency Framework for Family Physicians across the Continuum of Education
CanMEDS-FM 2017 is an adaptation, consistent with and building on CanMEDS 2015, contextually capturing family medicine-specific competencies. The Four Principles of Family Medicine are the foundation for understanding the values and contributions of family physicians, informing each of the CanMEDS-2017 Roles.
The CanMEDS-Family Medicine (CanMEDS-FM) 2017 is a competency framework designed for all family physicians regardless of practice type, location, or populations served. Together with the College of Family Physicians of Canada’s (CFPC) Family Medicine Professional Profile, it forms an overall picture of the roles and responsibilities of Canadian family physicians along with the competencies required to support their work.
Key elements in the latest CanMEDS-FM 2017 include:
- An emphasis on generalism and, as part of this, community-adaptive expertise introduced within the Family Medicine Expert Role
- Cultural safety introduced as an important feature of care provided by family physicians, with a description of related enabling competencies
Increased emphasis on patient safety - Continuous quality improvement introduced within the Leader, Scholar, and Health Advocate Roles
The CFPC’s Four Principles of Family Medicine strengthened and reaffirmed
The Leader Role replaces the CanMEDS-FM 2009 Manager Role, as per changes made in CanMEDS 2015
All seven Roles were revised; however, the Family Medicine Expert Role underwent the most extensive adaptation, aiming to integrate competencies across all Roles.
Using CanMEDS-FM
CanMEDS-FM applies to all family physicians. The Role descriptions and enabling competencies are independent of practice context, practice type, and population served. Taken as a whole, it captures both the common and distinctive competency requirements for family physicians.
The framework defines the abilities needed by family physicians across the educational continuum of undergraduate, postgraduate, enhanced skills training, and continuing professional development.
It does not define levels of competence, also referred to as benchmarks or milestones.
It can be used by others who work with family physicians in medical education, family medicine research, quality improvement, and more broadly within the health care system.
For more information on the CFPC’s CanMEDS-FM competency framework and supplement related resources click the link below.
CanMEDS-Family Medicine Undergraduate 2019
The College of Family Physicians of Canada (CFPC)’s Undergraduate Education Committee is pleased to share CanMEDS-FMU 2019: Undergraduate competencies from a family medicine perspective (CanMEDS-FMU 2019). We understand from medical students that they need and want family doctors to be more involved in their learning. CanMEDS-FMU 2019 sets out that role for family medicine in the undergraduate curriculum.
This document was written to inform and inspire the teaching and learning of general ism and generalist practice in the undergraduate medical curriculum, and to highlight the important role family physicians play in educating future physicians. These generalist competencies will help prepare students to enter any residency and are relevant regardless of student career direction. CanMEDS-FMU 2019 can be used to develop an entire generalist curriculum, or can be mapped to specific areas within the undergraduate medical curriculum (e.g., family medicine clerkship). This is an updated version of the original CanMEDS-FMU document used by family medicine undergraduate directors since 2009, and is aligned with CanMEDS 2015 and CanMEDS-FM 2017. It is a living document to be disseminated and used widely.
We practise in a dynamic environment with emerging technologies that increasingly include virtual care settings/patient encounters. The educational environment needs to evolve and keep pace with these changes. The CFPC together with family physician teachers are working to ensure that medical students are exposed to virtual care experiences that support compassion, patient centredness, and continuity of care.
CanMEDS-FM Indigenous Health Supplement
This Indigenous supplement to the CanMEDS-FM 2017 competency framework was released in 2020 and will help family physicians provide high-quality care that aligns with the needs and circumstances of Indigenous peoples living in Canada.
This resource outlines critical knowledge and skills needed for effective therapeutic interactions and culturally safe care of Indigenous patients, families, and communities. Each competency reflects the basic format of CanMEDS-FM, focusing on Indigenous-relevant situations and foundational knowledge needed to develop these enabling competencies.
This supplement is a resource for undergraduate, postgraduate, and continuing medical education with potential to assist with program design, curriculum content, learning methods, and learner assessment. The competencies presented here support the foundation for family physicians, medical trainees, and educators to better engage in care that authentically respects Indigenous peoples and their cultural, historical, political, and social contexts.
This ultimately leads to culturally safe and improved quality of health care to Indigenous populations.