Principle 1: Knowing the audience and the issues
The purpose of principle one was to identify the main issues and/or gaps that existed in undergraduate pain management and opioid use curricula nationally. In 2017 to 2018, AFMC began laying the groundwork for curriculum development through an environmental scan, which included systematically exploring offerings across all Canadian medical schools as well as conducting a review of literature related to medical education in pain management.
11 For the environmental scan, a third party conducted an environmental scan of North American medical schools to identify the extent to which pain management and opioid use disorder was covered within their respective curricula. A full report from the needs assessment can be found on the AFMC website (
https://www.afmc.ca/en/priorities/opioids). The AFMC then convened three expert panel meetings to review the curricula and teaching currently being provided in UGME, postgraduate medical education (PGME) and continuing professional development (CPD). A follow up survey was then distributed via e-mail to the deans of UGME, PGME, and CPD. In addition to the environmental scan of offerings and follow-up survey, the AFMC also convened expert review meetings to review the accuracy and comprehensiveness of the survey results. The review meetings included more than 30 addiction, substance use disorder, and medical experts from several competency areas (public health, review of pain, pathophysiology of pain and pharmacology of opioids, opioid prescribing, opioid use disorder, and cultural considerations [eg, cultural safety], legalities, and competency maintenance). See
Figure 2 for timelines and structure of project.
Principle 2: Identifying credible messengers
This KTA principle was addressed through stakeholder consultations, creating an undergraduate curriculum expert committee, an oversight committee, a transition committee, faculty development working groups, and selecting SMEs. The purpose of this principle was to identify individuals and organizations who were preferred or reliable sources of information relating to pain management and opioid use disorder. Having committee representation of national experts in pain management and opioid use disorder provided credible messengers who could report back to their respective medical schools. There was some overlap in the various credible messenger groups as some of the SMEs were also on the Curriculum and Faculty Development Committees and some of the students could have participated in the pilot study.
Stakeholder consultations
The AFMC secretariat for the project provided the national level structure for groups of other key stakeholders to meet to provide iterative and ongoing input into the curriculum. A number of consultation meetings were held with partners and stakeholders (eg, students, SMEs, deans, education development specialists, healthcare partners) throughout the curriculum development process. The SMEs and students were consulted at every stage of the process including building consensus on the curriculum, developing and reviewing the content, and validating the French translation of the curriculum. Partners were engaged in several ways with the curriculum development process (eg, providing documents and acting as key informants) to ensure that the content and structure of the curriculum could be delivered in an effective manner. The methods of engagement were diverse as well, including face-to-face meetings, inviting input through surveys, and virtual meetings. A mid-project summit was held which brought together 40 stakeholders of the project to validate the curriculum framework and decide on next steps.
Creation of the undergraduate curriculum expert committee
The second principle was also addressed through the creation of the Undergraduate Curriculum Expert Committee through the AFMC secretariat. The committee was composed of representatives from the AFMC and curriculum experts in addiction and/or pain management as identified by the undergraduate deans of each medical school. Further, this committee was supported by experts in pedagogy and curriculum development, technology, eLearning, evaluation, assessment, and project management. Key aims of this committee were to enhance relationship-building, consistency, and collaboration across all 17 Faculties of Medicine in Canada, and the development of an agreement on the competencies that underpin the opioid curriculum.Creation of the oversight committee
The Oversight Committee through the AFMC secretariat included members from 18 organizations, representing pain, and substance use experts, medical students, the Medical Council of Canada (MCC), the various colleges of physicians, UGME Deans, and the Canadian Medical Association. This senior leadership group was established to liaise with key stakeholders and partners, share and implement knowledge products, foster the interorganizational collaborative work that is unique to this project, and promote the need for medical expertize in opioid use disorder and chronic pain. Stakeholders of national healthcare and student organizations had representation on the Oversight committee.
Creation of the transition advisory committee and faculty development working group
The Transition Advisory Committee’s (a subcommittee of the Undergraduate Curriculum Expert Committee) mandate was to provide high level strategic consultation and advice for the national curriculum, and to develop a plan of optimum integration into the undergraduate curriculum and at the transition into PGME. One of the working groups established by the transition committee was the faculty development group whose role was to foster faculty development in teaching, and assessing pain management and addiction competencies across all disciplines.
Selection of subject matter experts
AFMC secretariat recruited national SMEs who are leaders in education in pain management, opioid prescribing, and opioid use. The SMEs provided content expertize, while the learning activities and assessments were developed in collaboration with educational developers, instructional designers, and multimedia specialists. The curriculum expert committee members were instrumental in identifying key content areas, and in mapping objectives to competencies, topics, and assessments.
Principle 3: Creating audience-specific messages and practices
Information gathered during principles one and two provided us with information about the needs and preferences of medical students, SMEs, and medical schools. This allowed us to create content that reflected the needs of a diverse population of end users.
In order to enhance the relevance of the curriculum to a wide audience of UGME students, the content and structure of the curriculum was drafted, reviewed, and edited by experts from multiple disciplines. Reviewers included SMEs, both English and French speaking, students, patients, Indigenous and cultural educators, equity, diversity and inclusion scholars, medical language editors, and interprofessional practitioners. Feedback from the reviewers helped the project team refine the specific content and structure of the curriculum, including content delivery, activities, and examples. Curricular revisions based on the reviewers’ feedback were then shared at the AFMC Project Summit in October, 2019.
Principle 5: Evaluating the product
A national recruitment campaign from AFMC using multiple social media channels and each medical school’s communications office took place to recruit medical students from all 17 medical schools, including urban and rural, and French speaking and anglophone schools. Over 600 medical students applied through an online application process to participate in the evaluation of the pilot phase of the project.
18 A total of 203 students were selected to participate based on purposive sampling to ensure representation across all 17 medical schools; 170 completed the evaluation over the two-month pilot phase (84% response rate). Most participants were women between the ages of 25 and 34 and in their clerkship stage of training. The core group was purposively selected to ensure there was representation across the medical schools.
Findings from the pilot evaluation indicate that the majority of participants (>70%) ‘agreed’ or ‘strongly agreed’ that they were able to meet the learning objectives of the modules, and that they found the program to be valuable, usable and feasible. Participants’ perceived confidence regarding their knowledge of the use of opioids in the management of pain increased by 75% between pre-and post-training. Overall results suggest that there were significant improvements in all domains of the knowledge test at post-training. This was true for both English and French versions of the tests. Commonly referenced strengths of the modules were that the material was clear, relevant and useful for future practice, while some identified weaknesses of the modules included the length and technological issues. We are planning to conduct a 1-year follow-up evaluation investigating the curriculum implementation, and how it has been integrated at different medical schools.