The threat of the dyscompetent resident: a plea to make the implicit more explicit!

Although several examples of frameworks dealing with students’ unprofessional behaviour are available, guidance on how to deal locally or regionally with dysfunctional residents is limited (Hickson et al. in Acad Med 82(11):1040–1048, 2007b; Leape and Fromson in Ann Intern Med 144(2):107–115, 2006). Any ‘rules’ are mostly unwritten, and often emerge by trial and error within the specialty training programme (Stern and Papadakis in N Engl J Med 355(17):1794–1799, 2006). It is nevertheless of utmost importance that objectives, rules and guidelines comparable to those existing in undergraduate training (Project Team Consilium Abeundi van Luijk in Professional behaviour: teaching, assessing and coaching students. Final report and appendices. Mosae Libris, 2005; van Mook et al. in Neth J Crit Care 16(4):162–173, 2010a) are developed for postgraduate training. And that implicit rules are made explicit. This article outlines a framework based on the lessons learned from contemporary postgraduate medical training programmes.