Recently, emphasis in medical education has centered on the assessment of core competencies in professional, and especially in medical education[1]. In this paper, we describe an approach to the teaching of surgical students one of the core competencies required in professional practice: that of effectively communicating information about a patient at the end of shift, an authentic practice called a ‘handoff’. In a recent paper, we described the development of an objective assessment tool for evaluating students’ summaries of a virtual trauma patient. In traditional medical instruction, emphasis has been put on directly teaching proper techniques for treating patients, however it has been assumed that students will simply pick up professional practices such as communication of the patient’s conditions. In the present paper we
present an analysis of the ‘hand off’ as an activity in Engeström’s[2] sense, which takes place within a professional community of practice[3].

Published in: Canada International Conference on Education, 2018

• Date of Conference: 25-28 June, 2018
• DOI: 10.2053/CICE.2018.0110
• Electronic ISBN: 978-1-908320-90-2
• Conference Location: University of Toronto Mississauga, Canada