Shared Canadian Curriculum in Family Medicine (SHARC-FM): Creating a national consensus on relevant and practical training for medical students.

PROBLEM ADDRESSED: In 2006, leaders of undergraduate family medicine education programs faced a series of increasing curriculum mandates in the context of limited time and financial resources. Additionally, it became apparent that a hidden curriculum against family medicine as a career choice was active in medical schools.

OBJECTIVE OF PROGRAM: The Shared Canadian Curriculum in Family Medicine was developed by the Canadian Undergraduate Family Medicine Education Directors and supported by the College of Family Physicians of Canada as a national collaborative project to support medical student training in family medicine clerkship. Its key objective is to enable education leaders to meet their educational mandates, while at the same time countering the hidden curriculum and providing a route to scholarship.

PROGRAM DESCRIPTION: The Shared Canadian Curriculum in Family Medicine is an open-access, shared, national curriculum (www.sharcfm.ca). It contains 23 core clinical topics (determined through a modified Delphi process) with demonstrable objectives for each. It also includes low- and medium-fidelity virtual patient cases, point-of-care learning resources (clinical cards), and assessment tools, all aligned with the core topics. French translation of the resources is ongoing.

CONCLUSION: The core topics, objectives, and educational resources have been adopted by medical schools across Canada, according to their needs. The lessons learned from mounting this multi-institutional collaborative project will help others develop their own collaborative curricula.