Reconfiguring the Medical Educator Profile in Paraguay: Competency-Based Education, Professionalism, and Social Accountability in a Context of Medical School Expansion
Main Article Content
Abstract
Background: Medical education in Paraguay faces a structural paradox. Graduate profiles have progressively aligned with competency-based medical education (CBME), social accountability, and Primary Health Care (PHC), yet the competencies expected of the medical educators who must enact these reforms remain undefined, unregulated, and unevaluated. This asymmetry is intensified by the rapid expansion of undergraduate medical programmes, which has increased the demand for faculty without guaranteeing their pedagogical preparation.
Aim: To analyze the implicit and explicit competencies required of medical educators in Paraguay and to propose an integrative competency profile and a policy pathway for their professionalization, aligned with national frameworks and international standards.
Methods: A qualitative, interpretative, and integrative documentary study compared national reference documents from the National Agency for the Evaluation and Accreditation of Higher Education, the Model for Medical Education in Paraguay, and the competency framework of the Ministry of Public Health and Social Welfare against international references, including global standards for medical education, the CanMEDS framework, and faculty development guides from the Association for Medical Education in Europe. Analysis proceeded through four phases: thematic extraction, comparison of convergences and divergences, international alignment, and integrative conceptual synthesis.
Results: National frameworks converge in describing an ethical, socially accountable, communicative, and community-oriented physician, yet none specifies educator competencies. A structural gap was identified between the sophistication of graduate profiles and the absence of formalized faculty standards, compounded by educational expansion and the lack of specific faculty regulation. Ten interconnected competency domains were synthesized into an integrative educator profile spanning pedagogy, competency-based assessment, updated clinical competence, professionalism and ethical leadership, communication and mentorship, educational scholarship, social accountability and Primary Health Care orientation, academic leadership and innovation, interprofessional education, and continuous faculty development.
Conclusion: Professionalizing medical educators is both an educational and a public health priority. The proposed integrative competency profile and phased policy pathway offer a conceptual basis for faculty development, quality assurance, and future national standards, requiring empirical validation in subsequent research.
Article Details
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