LAUSR

T he structure, content, implementation, and outcomes of education during medical school, residency, and ongoing clinical practice have been the subject of extensive debate and discussion since the times of William Halsted and Abraham Flexner, and more recently by influential committees from the Institute of Medicine, the Macy Foundation, and the Association of American Medical Colleges. In January 2005, the American Surgical Association Blue Ribbon Committee published their report in this Journal, concerning the multiple forces for change impacting medical education. Workforce issues, medical student and resident education, work-hour restrictions, structure of training programs, research training, faculty education, and continuing professional development were cited as critical strategies at a national level, to define and implement a new surgical education system. In 2012, Lewis and Klingensmith considered ongoing concerns in general surgery residency training. Technological advances such as laparoscopic and intraluminal approaches, the impact of cross-sectional imaging on management of trauma patients, outpatient surgery for breast, gallbladder and hernia procedures, continued postresidency training in fellowships, increasing American Board of Surgery examination failure rates, and challenges for autonomy during residency were declared as negative impacts on resident training. Curriculum updates, online learning and selfassessment modules, decreased service responsibilities, pre-residency boot-camps, simulation-based training, earlier specialization tracks, and extended residency training length were considered plausible solutions to the issues at hand. At a broader level, there is a national agenda to implement competency-based medical education, underpinned by competencies, milestones, and entrustable professional activities (EPAs). It is the aspiration that this educational structure will ensure trainees are placed under regular scrutiny with regard to their performance, and more importantly, to hold residency programs accountable for outcomes of their graduates. A laudable goal, as indeed there is a defined relationship between where one undertakes residency, and clinical outcomes in independent practice. The challenge is how to translate and coalesce all aspects of medical school, residency, and fellowship education into delivery of high-quality surgical care. Ultimately, the intention is to produce physicians who have acquired and can demonstrate their clinical knowledge, the skills to question, examine, investigate, diagnose, and manage patients, and behaviors or attitudes to engage colleagues,