Surgical training in the EEC —the training of a specialist
A new and exciting field of surgery, an inspiring and successful surgeon-teacher who enjoys young people--with a vivacious and somewhat flamboyant personality, and an eager, ambitious and intelligent pupil--these are the likely ingredients of successful apprenticeship and learning, and might even form the background for originality or a man who develops ideas. But in spite of increasing specialization in depth and exciting new developments--in all the fields of surgery--we all know that the hard core of the problem is not solved like that. There is a good deal of routine--relatively simple but very important areas of our daily work-in which a degree of boredom and lack of concern may lead to a situation in which the young man is used only as a pair of hands and he picks up what he can. Occasionally this succeeds and by accident he gains a great deal. Experience in Britain has shown that the "pairs of hands" situation is not enough, standards have been too low and an average level of surgical ability in the past has led to unacceptable morbidity if not mortality. Fortunately these difficulties were seen by the Royal Colleges in 1966 and the Joint Committee with its Specialist Advisory Committees were set up in conjunction with the Specialist Societies and more recently with the Association of surgical Professors. The plan was to devise programmes of training at certain centres with inspection to determine the adequacy of the clinical case load and facilities for training. Such a programme of training might well involve more than one post or hospital. Orthopaedics was the first to put its house in order and neurological surgery the last. Perhaps orthopaedics had the most urgent need and neurological surgery, as usual somewhat slow, working to the calendar rather than the clock. The other