JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Global transformations, including demographic aging, climate-related health risks, and rapid technological acceleration are reshaping health systems and the competencies required of future healthcare professionals. Yet current curricula often struggle to integrate these complex challenges in a coherent and future-oriented manner. This Eye Opener highlights the potential of the Inner Development Goals (IDGs) as an underutilized conceptual framework for enriching competency-based education in the health professions. The IDGs emphasize five dimensions: Being, Thinking, Relating, Collaborating, and Acting that align with key professional capacities such as self-awareness, systems thinking, empathy, interprofessional teamwork, and ethical action. Drawing on examples from geriatric care, climate-adapted practice, and AI-supported clinical reasoning, we illustrate how IDG-aligned learning outcomes can complement existing competency frameworks by fostering inner capacities essential for clinical judgement and person centered care. At the same time, we provide a critical reflection on potential risks, including over individualization of responsibility, insufficient attention to structural determinants of health, and tensions with assessment-driven educational cultures. Rather than proposing IDGs as a complete solution, this article argues that they offer a valuable conceptual entry point for rethinking how health professions education can prepare learners for the uncertainties, ethical complexities, and interdependencies of contemporary healthcare. The IDGs can help open new pedagogical and conceptual spaces, encouraging educators to design learning environments that support both technical proficiency and the inner capacities needed for navigating an increasingly complex world.