The College of Optometrists is to pilot changes to its current registration scheme two years after it replaced the Personal Qualifying Examination Part II.
The review group of representatives of the College considered feedback from those involved in the current assessment process. Acting on the feedback, the College has announced a series of changes it believes will help trainees maintain the skills they acquire early in the scheme until the end of their pre-reg period.
The proposed changes include a re-organisation of the assessment framework so that the sequence in which competencies are assessed better reflects the usual order in which trainees gain experience.
The College proposes to split the Final Assessment in two parts, both of which will be piloted during 2008 and, if successful, introduced for trainees who enter the scheme from June 1 2009.
The first part to be piloted will be an objective structured clinical examination which will assess trainees across a wide range of clinical tasks, using patient-centred scenarios, and combines the judgements of a number of examiners.
The second part is the assessment of two common optometric procedures: routine examination and contact lens fitting and aftercare. The pilot will assess these in the trainees' own practices, using a different assessor, and using patients unknown to the trainee.
Professor John Lawrenson, chairman of the education committee, said 'The College believes that the combination of the three different assessment methods proposed by the review group will lead to a truly integrated assessment system, which is fair to candidates and which will continue to assure the GOC, employers and the public that those who pass can practise safely unsupervised.'