Entrustment Decision Making in Clinical Training

Abstract

The decision to trust a medical trainee with the critical responsibility to care for a patient is fundamental to clinical training. When carefully and deliberately made, such decisions can serve as significant stimuli for learning and also shape the assessment of trainees. Holding back entrustment decisions too much may hamper the trainee’s development toward unsupervised practice. When carelessly made, however, they jeopardize patient safety. Entrustment decision-making processes, therefore, deserve careful analysis.