Developing entrustable professional activities for doctoral graduates in health professions education: obtaining a national consensus in Iran

BACKGROUND: The number of doctoral programs in health professions education (HPE) is expanding. Entrustable professional activities (EPAs) can be a mechanism to define the expected activities of the HPE doctorate to inform training and assessment processes. The purpose of this study was to develop and reach a consensus on EPAs for HPE doctoral graduates. METHODS: We used a modified Nominal Group Technique (NGT) to elicit EPA titles followed by two rounds of a modified Delphi survey to seek consensus on the EPAs among groups of experts (HPE doctoral graduates and Board of HPE Examiners members) at the national level in Iran between July 2019 and July 2020. RESULTS: A total number of 92 initial EPA titles, which emerged from brainstorming in the NGT meeting, was reduced to 27 titles during the clarification process. The final EPA framework consisted of 24 EPA titles with descriptions, arranged in three categories: Research and scholarship (6 EPAs), Educational development (11 EPAs) and Educational management (7 EPAs). All final EPAs scored ≥80% agreement at the national level. CONCLUSIONS: The proposed EPAs framework can be used to improve the HPE doctorate training and to inform employment decisions. A future international consensus procedure could use these EPA outcomes as a starting point. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12909-022-03469-6.