Speeding Up Clinical Skills Development in Accelerated Undergraduate Medical Education: Current Insights From Cognitive Science

There is an increasing need to speed up essential clinical skills development in accelerated undergraduate medical education, but there are concerns about developing the required competency in these skills. The aim of this article is to provide insights from cognitive science, with a variety of practical evidence-based strategies for speeding up clinical skills development that have a unique focus on both maximising skill acquisition and retention, with minimisation of their decay over time. These strategies include the need to ensure readiness for training and to provide opportunities for regular practice with assessment and spacing across a variety of situations.