UEMS European Training Requirements

ETRs for high quality training

At the UEMS, we do think and advocate that training programs in European countries should adhere to these requirements to ensure that specialists are adequately prepared to provide high-quality care to patients.

Mobility of European medical specialists and patients creates a strong need for harmonised standards of practice and high quality of patient care. The ETRs can and should play an important role in this process. 

ETRs, a tool for quality control of specialist training

Thanks to the work of its Specialist Sections, Multidisciplinary Joint Committees and European Boards, the UEMS contributes significantly to the improvement of PGT especially through the development of European curriculum in each medical specialty as well as the elaboration of training standards in its ETRs.

From the moment the ETR for a certain specialty is approved, the UEMS offers them across Europe as its view regarding the way forward for quality training in the specialty. 
It is entirely up to each country to decide if they wish to see them only as quality control markers or use them partly or in total as their national requirements.

The development & adoption of ETRs

The preparation, writing and adoption of a UEMS European Training Requirements is a thorough rigorous procedure, which ends with a vote at a UEMS Council meeting.

  UEMS bodies (Specialist Sections, Multidisciplinary Joint Committees or European Boards) initiate the drafting of a new ETRs in a given medical specialty or discipline or the updating of an existing one. 

  The development of a draft of ETR goes through a lengthy process gathering experienced professionals of the given specialty who work together to set the training standards through 3 dimensions: 

​- requirements for trainees, which detail the content of training and the learning outcomes along with the organisation of their training, such as notably the minimum duration of training;

​- requirements for trainers, on 2 folds, the process and criteria to recognise a physician as a trainer, and the criteria to ensure quality of their training;

​- requirements for training institutions, on the process and criteria for its recognition as training institution and on the procedures and governance to ensure quality in the training.

  The UEMS body organises, with the support of the ETR Review Committee, a comprehensive review and interdisciplinary consultation of their projects of ETR among multiple medical specialties, with the collaboration of scientific societies and professional medical organisations of their projects of ETR.

The UEMS ETR Review Committee is comprised of a team of experienced members, led by Prof. Nada Cikes (Rheumatologist, Croatia): Dr. Andrew Brittlebank, Mr Arthur Felice, Prof. Reinold Gans, Dr. Marc Hermans, Prof. Pedro-Carlos Lara, Prof. Ute Moog, Prof. Vassilios Papalois, Prof. Paolo Ricci, Dr. Sarah Verheyen.

  Once finalised by the UEMS body, the 1st draft of ETR is shared within the UEMS to the ETR Review Committee and to all UEMS members and bodies.

The timeline for ETR in view of discussion & vote at a UEMS Council

The UEMS has set templates and guidelines for the development of ETR, which are the backbones and starting point for any UEMS body wishing to develop training requirements in a given specialty or discipline. The templates and guidelines are available here.

The adopted ETRs

The UEMS has already adopted European Training Requirements in the following specialties and disciplines: