Appraisal, Assessment and Career Development for Doctors in Training: The Mersey Deanery Personal Development Portfolio

[Introducing formative portfolio as a tool for Internal Medicine residents mentoring: review of a pilot project, 2005-2006]

Recent educational projects in our country have been trying to introduce professional portfolios as assessment/learning tools on the undergraduate and specialized post-graduate education levels. The approval of a new formative program for the Internal Medicine specialty in an effort to adapt to the present health care needs offers an opportunity to apply these formative and evaluative methodologies in the learning process of future internists. During the 2005-2006 academic year, the Formative Work Group of the Spanish Internal Medicine Society (SEMI) developed a pilot study on portfolio application as a tool for formative assessment and mentoring. This article describes the project of designing, developing, applying and assessing an electronic portfolio for first year Internal Medicine residents. It presents an analysis of the SEMI Portfolio strengths and weaknesses and finally makes suggestions for future development.