Development of Surgical Trainer Standards

The Faculty has adapted the existing AoME standards and rewritten them with the surgical trainer in mind. Rather than a simple and superficial rewrite, an in depth process of analysis and adaptation has been carried out.

Retention of the original domain headings has ensured that this process will satisfy the GMC trainer approval process. This adaptation process has also taken care to accurately depict what an effective surgical trainer actually does in their day to day training job. Detailed and multiple sources of evidence have been compiled that can be used to demonstrate that a trainer meets the GMC trainer approval standard. Throughout all this process an emphasis was kept on being practical and not turning into an onerous burden of paperwork for the trainer.

Although the original domain headings, and the concept of the effective and excellent trainer were retained, all the descriptors were altered to ensure that they reflected real world surgical training practice. These descriptors all describe behaviours that any surgical trainer would recognise and would carry out in their training role. For each descriptor time was spent detailing a list of sources of possible evidence that could be used by that trainer to prove that they satisfy that particular descriptor and can map to that domain.

A complex list of descriptors was drawn up for each domain, and then were distilled down into a smaller set of behaviours that were indicative of effective surgical training. This forms our Standards for Surgical Trainers. This document will make it easier for surgical trainers to fulfil the GMC trainer approval process. While the faculty welcome efforts to enhance the quality of training, it is important to ensure that dedicated trainers will not relinquish their training role in light of this impending legislation. The production of a dedicated set of standards for a surgical trainer, rather than the generic AoME standards, should help support surgeons to remain as recognised trainers.

These standards have been presented to the Joint Committee on Surgical Training, who hope to adapt these as the UK standard for surgical trainers. The Faculty are currently working with ISCP to integrate both these standards and the method of proving that you meet these standards into ISCP version 10.