Since 2015, healthcare has changed dramatically, yet the CanMEDS framework has remained largely the same. CanMEDS 2025 updates the global standard for physician competencies, embedding themes like equity, physician well-being, digital care, and planetary health. For programs using Competency-Based Medical Education (CBME), this means assessing competence not just on paper, but in real-world clinical practice.
Why update the Canmeds framework?
Recent scientific research and feedback from the medical community suggest that the 2015 version no longer fully captures the complexities of modern practice. To ensure medical professionals remain effective in an era of rapid social and technological change, there is a concrete need to integrate themes that were previously under-addressed. The goal is to make the competencies of medical professionals more honest, modern, and relevant to the changing healthcare environment.
The implications for CBME
The rise of CBME has highlighted this gap even more clearly. Checklists and discrete competencies can’t fully capture skills like professionalism, equity, and context-aware decision-making. CanMEDS 2025 responds by embedding these themes across roles, supporting CBME’s goal of assessing competence as it’s demonstrated in real-life situations, not just on paper.
Integrating new themes into the existing roles
Rather than adding an eighth role, the 2025 update weaves critical modern themes into the existing roles:
- Equity, Diversity, Inclusion & Anti-racism
- Physician Humanism & Well-Being
- Data-Informed Medicine & Virtual Care
- Planetary Health & Sustainability
For CBME, this means these themes aren’t extra boxes to tick, they’re integrated into everyday clinical work and workplace-based assessment. Trainees can be evaluated on these competencies in context, making assessments more meaningful and reflective of real-world practice.
How this works in practice:
As stated in the previous paragraph, no roles are being removed, renamed, or added: the change is conceptual, not structural. This decision also supports CBME: adding a new role could create assessment overload and fragment learning experiences.
Instead, CanMEDS 2025 encourages integration across roles. For example:
- Inclusion and anti-racism skills can be observed in how trainees communicate and advocate for patients.
- Physician well-being and humanism are part of professional behaviour and clinical judgement.
- Digital skills and planetary health considerations can be assessed in scholarship, leadership, and patient care.
This alignment with CBME allows programs to measure holistic competence rather than discrete skills in isolation, promoting a richer, context-aware learning environment.
A rocky road
The path toward CanMEDS 2025 hasn’t been entirely smooth. Within the Canadian medical community, there’s an active debate about the “center of gravity” of the new framework.
Some argue that medical professionals should play a stronger role as agents of social change, especially to improve care for marginalized groups. Others are more cautious. They worry about mission creep: that too much emphasis on social justice and advocacy could push core clinical expertise into the background.
For the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada, the challenge is to strike the right balance: encouraging socially aware physicians without losing sight of the clinical mastery that safe, high-quality care depends on.
Conclusion
CanMEDS 2025 sharpens the focus of the seven roles, embedding modern themes like equity, anti-racism, digital care, and planetary health. For CBME, this isn’t just a conceptual update: it affects how competence is taught, observed, and assessed in daily practice.
Competence is dynamic and contextual, and CanMEDS 2025 provides the guideposts for this reality. By aligning the framework with CBME principles, trainers can ensure trainees develop into medical professionals who are not only clinically skilled but also socially conscious, digitally literate, and prepared for the complex healthcare systems of today.
Check out the table below to find out how the new themes are embedded.
Theme | How it functions |
Equity, Diversity, Inclusion & Anti-Racism | Embedded in Communicator, Health Advocate, Professional, Leader |
Physician Humanism & Well-Being | Embedded in Professional, Medical Expert, Leader |
Data-Informed & Digital Care | Embedded in Medical Expert, Scholar, Leader |
Complex Adaptive Systems | Embedded in Leader, Collaborator, Health Advocate |
Virtual Care & Learning Environments | Embedded across Communicator, Scholar, Medical Expert |
Planetary Health & Sustainability | Embedded in Health Advocate and Leader |
Make CanMEDS 2025 Work in Practice
Reconcept EPA Portfolio fully incorporates all CanMEDS 2025 competencies, providing a practical way for trainers and trainees to track development and demonstrate competence in a CBME-environment.
Want to see it in action? Request a demo and discover how the Reconcept EPA Portfolio can support the implementation of CanMEDS 2025 in your program.
