Contemporary Issues in the Acquisition of Orthopaedic Surgical Skills During Residency: Competency-Based Medical Education and Simulation.

Abstract

Orthopaedic education should produce surgeons who are competent to function independently and can obtain and maintain board certification. Contemporary orthopaedic training programs exist within a fixed 5-year time frame, which may not be a perfect match for each trainee. Most modern orthopaedic residencies have not yet fully adopted objective, proficiency-based, surgical skill training methods despite nearly 2 decades of evidence supporting the use of this methodology. Competency-based medical education backed by surgical simulation rooted in proficiency-based progression has the potential to address surgical skill acquisition challenges in orthopaedic surgery.