The new trainee curriculum arrives

Dr. Edward Verrier, JCTSE Surgical Director of Education, explains that "the curriculum revision is a number of years in conception, preparation, organization, and now implementation. It is the combined effort of a number of dedicated educators and societies with some financial support from industry."

Referencing Salman Kahn in The One World Schoolhouse: Education Reimagined, Dr. Verrier continues: "We believe that this educational tool, using both a learning management and content management electronic based platform, has the potential to ‘flip the classroom.’ With work hour restrictions for residents, a constantly increasing body of knowledge, and the challenges of teaching in the operating room, we believe the new Thoracic Surgery Curriculum has the potential to transform our current approach to surgical education."

So what does this mean for trainees? As stated by Dr. Vaporciyan, "the biggest benefit to the trainees is that, with this content and related quizzes, individuals will have the ability to assess their own needs, have immediate access to relevant content that is free of charge, and, importantly, it is the ABTS intent to ultimately derive the examination material from this new electronic curriculum." Yes, it’s true. The board has agreed that the new curriculum will serve as a template of the content for both the written and oral examinations, making this curriculum the ideal study source for trainees. Dr. John Calhoon, chair of the ABTS, reports that "it is our goal to make sure that we draw questions in the future from the content that is called for in our outline and encompassed by the efforts of this new curriculum’s editors." (And did I mention that it’s free and immediately accessible on the Internet?)

And what about for the educators out there – what does this mean for you? Vaporciyan highlights three key advantages for the teachers: 1) the curriculum is completely malleable, so you can take whatever topic you want your learners to focus upon, and you can add to it or separate topics in any way, such as rotation preparation or linear knowledge acquisition; 2) through learner management aspects of Moodle, you can track all of your learners’ progress; 3) the curriculum is linked to Milestones, which should dramatically assist with meeting this requirement of the ACGME.

As mentioned by Dr. Vaporciyan, the Milestones Project is an important recent endeavor of the ACGME, mandating that all specialty groups develop outcome-based goals for resident performance within the six domains of clinical competence. The milestones will be used by the ACGME to demonstrate accountability of effectiveness of education within ACGME-accredited programs, and, looking ahead, resident performance on milestones will become a source of normative data for the RRC to use in assessing residency programs and facilitating improvements. Linking the new curriculum to milestones will render it a great tool to program directors in ACGME-accredited programs. As explained by Dr. Calhoon, "the RRC is working with the Milestones effort to align the individual curricular modules so that residency training programs will find further synergy and utility in adapting or frankly using the curriculum ‘right off the shelf.’"

When asked about the new curriculum, President of the TSDA Dr. David Fullerton shares with us that "along with the other organizations within our specialty, the TSDA is committed to the education of our residents. The TSDA feels that the consolidation of our specialty’s curricular efforts in this way is a significant advance in thoracic surgical education." Further, Dr. Fullerton acknowledges that the new curriculum "will afford our residents immediate electronic access to important educational materials and will be flexible enough for adaption in individual programs." With gratitude on behalf of the TSDA, Dr. Fullerton congratulates all of the individuals who have contributed to making the Thoracic Surgery Curriculum a reality.

Clearly, this new curriculum has much to offer, for both the teacher and the student. It will be of significant interest to track use and observe associated relationships with subsequent board examination success.

In anticipation of an Aug. 1 launch, notifications regarding accessing the site were provided to residents and program directors via email throughout the month of July. More information on the new curriculum, as well as an introductory video, is found at www.tsda.org/education/thoracic-surgery-curricula.

And we will continue to follow and discuss the new curriculum in these pages of the Residents’ Corner.