Abstract submissions go live!

Abstract submissions have opened for this year’s Faculty of Surgical Trainers conference Training by Numbers: Competency v Time in Surgical Training.

The event takes place on 21 October in Edinburgh, with the following speakers confirmed:
• Mary Klingensmith MD, President of the Association for Surgical Education, Distinguished Professor of Surgery and Vice Chair for Education at Washington University School of Medicine in St Louis
• Anthony Gallagher, Professor of Technology Enhanced Learning, University College Cork
• Nick Sevdalis, Professor of Implementation Science and Patient Safety, KCL, and Editor-in-Chief, BMJ Simulation and Technology Enhanced Learning

FST's Surgical Director, Craig McIlhenny said, “This year’s conference addresses what is seemingly a perennial issue within surgery. Received wisdom within the profession has been that a key measure of competency is a fixed amount of time spent in training. However, in recent years this dictum has been questioned, as we now know that time is not necessarily a surrogate for competence. Our current training programmes are still largely time based. so do we need to change our training programmes? How do we say with confidence when a trainee is competent? October’s conference will capture this debate, from training methods to the very definition of competency.”

The conference will also feature a series of practical breakout workshops with topics such as simulation-based training, how to give effective feedback and getting the most from the ISCP.

More details here.