ACS Surgery Weekly Curriculum

NEW ACS Surgery Weekly Curriculum

Welcome to the ACS Surgery Weekly Curriculum (WC) for the 2010-2011 academic year. There are many changes and improvements to share with you, all designed to enhance the educational experience and elevate your personal results.

Scope of WC

The curriculum is designed to encompass SCORE modules that have been developed (Broad Diseases/Conditions, Common Operations/Procedures, and Medical Knowledge) but also include topics that are in development (Focused Diseases/Conditions and Essential-Uncommon and Complex Operations/Procedures) and other Competencies that have only ACS Surgery chapters but no SCORE modules. We anticipate adding these modules as SCORE evolves but for now these are available only through ACS Surgery. Modules in development are shown in green in the curriculum. As new SCORE modules are added the curriculum will be updated. Every 6 to 8 weeks is a scheduled open session that might be used for MCQ review. Four weeks per year are unscheduled, anticipating the need for holidays and vacations. Obviously these weeks can be scheduled at the program director's disgression, without being out of synch at the end of the year.

Junior and Senior MCQs

We have developed a schedule of weekly topics designed to provide a structure for general surgery program directors and residents seeking a logical progression of topics for a curriculum conference or resident self-study. This is built on a 2-year Junior Resident (more Medical Knowledge than Patient Care) and a 3-year Senior Resident (more Patient Care than Medical Knowledge) schedule of topics consistent with the ABSITE exam. Each week includes a suggested topic and identifies the appropriate ACS Surgery chapters, SCORE modules, and multiple choice questions focused on the topic. Note that we now provide 5 questions for Junior Residents and 5 for Senior Residents. You may choose either track or both, and record your results in your personal log book. Holiday weeks are left open, recognizing the usual demands on PD scheduling.

Enhanced Log Book

The log book remains entirely confidential and is accessible only by the individual resident and the PD. Your scores will accumulate week by week and a profile of your results will be generated. To begin, only your personal profile will be available; in the months ahead, WC will provide metrics on your performance within your program as well as nationally.

Core Competencies

Every 3 months we have included a session that a PD may devote to one of the other competencies, namely Professionalism, Interpersonal Communication, Practice-Based Learning and Improvement, and Systems-Based Practice. We have made suggestions for topics that are supported by ACS Surgery resources when available, but these can be supplemented with local topics of interest as you see fit.

Implementing WC into Your Program

Ideally a PD/resident might follow this curriculum exactly, assigning/completing readings and MCQs prior to a scheduled conference. Completion and scoring can be tracked through ACS Surgery, with an invited speaker who would be given the topic, accompanying SCORE objectives, and open-ended questions when appropriate. Alternatively, residents might just be assigned the readings, SCORE modules and MCQs with no accompanying conference. Other options would be for PDs to schedule their curriculum with some lag from the WC so that speakers and specific conferences could be more flexibly scheduled or, if a PD chooses to have only a single WC, they could pick and choose from the available Junior/Senior topics.

We hope you appreciate and benefit from the extensive changes to Weekly Curriculum, and encourage your feedback on how to improve the product even further.

	Mary Klingensmith, Education Editor
	Doug Smink, WC Editor
	Stan Ashley, Editor-in-Chief