The implications of Modernising Medical Careers for specialist registrars

A framework to establish a mentoring programme in surgery

INTRODUCTION

Mentoring programmes help to facilitate the process of continuous professional development in surgery, providing an organizational structure around a mentor-mentee relationship which helps to develop the mentee. The lack of guidelines outlining how to set up such mentoring programmes, the fragmented inter-relationships of existing schemes and the lack of a unified strategy for their implementation are obstacles to the creation of such initiatives within many surgical departments.

METHODS

We draw upon previous research, the experiences of certain authors and our own reflections to identify the key features of a surgical mentoring programme.

RESULTS

We propose a ten step process which aims to encourage the development of formalised mentoring programmes in surgery.

CONCLUSION

This outline may improve the delivery and effectiveness of mentoring programmes, which may ultimately enhance surgical training and hence quality of patient care.

Introducing competency-based postgraduate medical education in the Netherlands

Medical boards around the world face the challenge of creating competency-based postgraduate training programs. Recent legislation requires that all postgraduate medical training programmes in The Netherlands be reformed. In this article the Dutch Advisory Board for Postgraduate Curriculum Development shares some of their experiences with guiding the design of specialist training programs, based on the Canadian Medical Educational Directives for Specialists (CanMEDS). All twenty-seven Dutch Medical Specialty Societies take three steps in designing a curriculum. First they divide the entire content of a specialty into logical units, so-called 'themes'. The second step is discussing, for each theme, for which tasks trainees have to be instructed, guided, and assessed. Finally, for each task an assessment method is chosen to focus on a limited number of CanMEDS roles. This leads to a three step training cycle: (i) based on their in-training assessment and practices, trainees will gather evidence on their development in a portfolio; (ii) this evidence stimulates the trainee and the supervisor to regularly reflect on a trainee's global development regarding the CanMEDS roles as well as on the performance in specific tasks; (iii) a personal development plan structures future learning goals and strategies. The experiences in the Netherlands are in line with international developments in postgraduate medical education and with the literature on workplace-based teaching and learning.