19/03/2026
The SU Division of Family Medicine and Primary Care worked together with colleagues from many specialties and universities in South Africa to write an article entitled “The introduction of workplace-based assessment into postgraduate medical training in South Africa: trainee perspectives”. The authors included: Emma Daitz, Louis Jenkins, Jacques Janse van Rensburg, Madeleine Muller, Veena S Singaram, Richard Cooke, Sumaiya Adam, Dini Mawela, Gerda Botha, Thakadu Mamashela, Tashneem Harris, Eric Buch, Lionel Green-Thompson, Vanessa Burch & Tasleem Ras.
Here is a short summary: South Africa (SA) is moving towards implementing workplace[1]based assessments (WBA) in all medical specialist training programmes in the country. There are many challenges with implementing WBA, with implications for resources, and recognizing regulatory, educational, and social complexities. Research on WBA practices, experiences, and perceptions in the SA healthcare system is limited. The aim of this study was to identify factors that could impact WBA implementation from the perspectives of medical doctors in SA undergoing medical specialist training. The findings report on the perspectives, aspirations, and concerns of these postgraduate medical specialist trainees (also known as registrars and residents). We conducted two phases of institution-specific, interdisciplinary focus group discussions with trainees at 7 universities in 2 phases. Trainees had a generally positive attitude towards WBA. However, they expressed anxieties about supervisor bias, unequal clinical contexts, and lack of standardization affecting their assessment outcomes if WBA was to be fully implemented. They reported that consultants were often unavailable for WBA activities and misunderstood the differences between summative and formative assessments. Conclusions: Trainees support WBA in principle but anticipate uneven implementation without structured faculty development, protected observation time, and safeguards for fairness across settings. Early implementation should prioritize role clarity, feedback skills, and context[1]sensitive quality assurance
