Surgical critical care entrustable professional activities: A new era in assessment

In 2023, the Trauma Burns and Surgical Critical Care Board (TBSCCB) embarked on the process of developing Entrustable Professional Activities (EPAs) for Surgical Critical Care (SCC) fellowships. This was accomplished in pre-planned stages, modeled after the general surgery EPA creation process, namely selection of EPAs by the TBSCCB members, recruitment of Reactor Panel and Writing Groups, drafting of EPA descriptions with inclusion/exclusion and scope by TBSCCB, engagement of the Reactor Panel, identification of phases of care, drafting of learner functions, development of cognitive frameworks, mapping to American College of Graduate Medical Education SCC 2.0 milestones, writing of expected behaviors, harmonization of behaviors and final editing and publication. There are several considerations that are unique to the specialty that presented particular challenges in the development and execution of SCC EPAs This article described the process that was utilized to create the suite of SCC EPAs and these unique challenges with which the Scope Council, Writing Group, and Reactor Panel were faced.