On Tuesday, April 30, 2013 the University of Toronto’s Division of Orthopaedic Surgery presented “A Practical Approach to Competency-Based Education in Your Residency Training Program: From Concept to Implementation” – the first workshop of its kind to be offered in Canada, introducing a new model for teaching and assessing resident trainees for competency.
Led by Dr. Markku Nousiainen, Program Director of Competency Based Curriculum for the Division of Orthopaedic Surgery, with support of a stellar planning committee including Drs. Benjamin Alman, Peter Ferguson, William Kraemer and Richard Reznick, participants for this novel workshop convened at the MaRS Collaboration Centre in Toronto. Chairs, Program Directors and educators in postgraduate training programs in North America engaged with their colleagues for a full day of learning. Among the invited participants in attendance, 37 from the United States, 23 were from Canada, and 1 from Pakistan.
Learning activities consisted of plenary sessions, breakout sessions with module leaders to develop curriculum maps, and a visit to the Mount Sinai Hospital Surgical Skills Centre to learn how to organize and implement a surgical skills boot camp. Plenary sessions addressed the rationale for competency–based training, the anticipated future training requirements from both a Canadian and American perspective to meet the future requirements of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada (RCPSC) and the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME), and how to develop an Orthopaedic Boot Camp surgical skills module and evaluation tools in a training program. During the final debrief session, participants also had the unique opportunity to hear from several University of Toronto surgical resident trainees who had been through the curriculum. They shared their experiences of the program and answered questions, providing valuable feedback. Lots of lively discussion ensued among faculty and participants, wrapping up a thoroughly successful day.
The Competency-Based Education Training workshop arose from U of T’s Orthopaedics Competency-Based Curriculum Pilot Project with funding support from the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care. The University of Toronto has the largest orthopaedic residency program in North America, and trains more clinical fellows each year than any other single University. The program’s surgical skills Orthopaedic Boot Camp was recently awarded the Association for Surgical Education’s (ASE) Excellence in Innovation in Surgical Education Award that recognizes exemplary performance by surgical educators with novel ideas and/or methods for improving teaching and learning. Congratulations to Drs. Ranil Sonnadara, Oleg Safir, Markku Nousiainen, Benjamin Alman, Peter Ferguson, William Kraemer, Richard Reznick and Ms. Lisa Satterthwaite!