Letter of Support for Croatian Junior Doctors

The European Junior Doctors Association (EJD) expresses support for the Croatian Medical Chamber’s Junior Doctors Committee and their demands for the introduction of digital records “e-Portfolios” to document, evaluate and monitor postgraduate training (PGT) of Junior Doctors (JDs) in Croatia.

EJD has a firmly held position that paper, rather than digital, documentation of postgraduate medical training is historical and archaic, and that electronic portfolios should be part of the minimum standards for postgraduate medical training in Croatia and across Europe. Paper documentation adds to the administrative burden on junior doctors and reduces the time available for optimal postgraduate training. Digital portfolios benefit both the trainee and the trainer; they enable transparency, accountability and consistency in the documentation of postgraduate training within and between European training programmes and European nations.

EJD supports the use of e-Portfolios across Europe and the demands of the Croatian Medical Chamber and recommends the following basic requirements for electronic documentation of training:

• e-Portfolios should be free of charge, easy to access, and individualised.
• e-Portfolios should be provided by public institutions (e.g., governmental organisations, medical chambers, universities, teaching hospitals etc.) instead of private companies or other organisations.
• e-Portfolios should support personal development and postgraduate medical training on a competency-based level.
• e-Portfolios should contain feedback, self-assessment, and quality assurance tools.
• e-Portfolios should be user friendly, multi-platform and data should be transferable and connected with other electronic systems, in concordance with personal rights and privacy legislation in place.
• e-Portfolios should not significantly increase the administrative workload of junior or senior doctors.
• Assessment and licensing should remain at the national level, independent of who provides and oversees the e-Portfolio
• In countries where there is a Final Training Assessment for licensing, e-Portfolios should be part of that evaluation.

Electronic portfolios have become a common, standardised and widely used tool in recent years in postgraduate training in Europe. We believe that in the future no training programme in Europe should be without the adoption of an official e-Portfolio. EJD urges decision￾makers in Croatia to support the Croatian Medical Chamber’s Junior Doctors Committee in their effort to improve PGT through the implementation of an e-Portfolio system.