Learning curves in Vascular surgery
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Operative learning curve trajectory in UK Vascular Surgery trainees
IRAS ID
278920
Contact name
Luke G R Hopkins
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Health Education and Improvement Wales
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 6 months, 1 days
Research summary
In 2013 Vascular Surgery became an independent surgical speciality in the United Kingdom. Like all surgical specialties it has experienced significant challenges related to European Working Time Directive regulations and Modernising Medical Careers, including the introduction of a competency-based approach that has driven the need for objective, quantifiable educational outcomes.
Before 2013 Vascular Surgery was a subspecialty of General Surgery with all trainees required to achieve competences set by the Joint Committee on Surgical Training in order to be awarded a Certificate of Completion of Training (CCT). All trainees are required to complete a minimum total operative caseload of 1600, as well as complete a number of procedure-based assessments (PBA) to demonstrate competence.
The Vascular Surgery section of the General Surgery curriculum identifies four procedures that subspecialty trainees in Vascular surgery are required to demonstrate a minimum indicative number and competence level, by means of three level 4 PBAs by three different consultant assessors. Indicative numbers were intended as a guide, to allow trainees to demonstrate a breadth of surgical exposure. They were set at a level corresponding to the first quartile of two historical cohorts of successful national CCT applicants.
Since they were introduced there has been concerns that these numbers may not be achievable. Concerns that changes to surgical training were not allowing UK Vascular trainees to achieve appropriate levels of competence formed part of the argument for allowing Vascular Surgery to become an independent speciality and to therefore develop its own curriculum. At present trainees following the ‘new’ Vascular Surgery curriculum are not set any indicative numbers, however they are required to attain 10-20 level 4 PBAs in five index procedures.
This study is designed to evaluate the trajectory or gradient of incline between performance levels for Vascular Surgery index procedures related to both operative experience, indicative numbers, and time within a training programme, for higher surgical trainees in the UK. It will also examine differences in the operative exposure and demonstration of competence of trainees on the new Vascular Surgery curriculum and their predecessors.
REC name
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REC reference
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