The Swiss catalogue of learning objectives

PBL philosophy may challenge the need for explicit and specific educational objectives in medical education. From a practical point of view, however, such objectives are essential to achieve a close overlap between learning, teaching and assessment. Since the 1970s medical licensing in Switzerland has been based, among other things, on passing a uniform, centrally prepared MCQ exam for the graduates of all five Swiss medical schools. The need for a set of jointly developed learning, teaching and assessment objectives has become apparent. The Joint Conference of Swiss Medical Schools has therefore charged a small taskforce with the development of such a catalogue. This paper describes the background, process and results of this work.