TUESDAY, Oct. 14 (HealthDay News) -- Using the voyage of Ferdinand Magellan as a metaphor, the president of the Society of Neurological Surgeons discusses the climate affecting neurosurgical residency training and describes why the current paradigm must be examined and possibly changed, in an address published in the October issue of the Journal of Neurosurgery.
A. John Popp, M.D., of the Albany Medical Center in Albany, N.Y., reviews a number of challenges facing neurosurgical training. First, he discusses the value of a liberal education and how such an education can assist trainees in achieving the goals set forth by Hippocrates. He then points out generational issues between current faculty and trainees, and how addressing these generational differences is essential for continued success.
Popp then discusses the tensions of the 80-hour work-week and the struggle to provide both excellent educational programs and excellent patient care. Finally, Popp questions the value of the current core competencies in residency education and rhetorically asks if facility in the core competencies equates with being a good physician?
"I hope the foregoing discussion has brought you to the same conclusion that I have reached: that the Society of Neurological Surgeons is prepared to lead an initiative to evaluate our current education model carefully and, where necessary, map a new training paradigm," Popp writes. "Making small, incremental, reactive changes to the current residency training model is no longer a viable alternative."
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