To the Editor: The Department of Surgery at the Nelson R Mandela School of Medicine is proud of its 100% pass rate in the October 2008 Colleges of Medicine of South Africa examinations held in Durban. Most candidates attended the graduation and joined the 3 who passed in May as registered specialists in general surgery. This represents a stalwart effort on the part of the candidates and their t...

BACKGROUND Effective nurse-physician communication is critical to delivering high quality patient care. Interprofessional communication between surgical nurses and surgeons, often through the use of pagers, is currently characterized by information gaps and interprofessional tensions, both sources of workflow interruption, potential medical error, impaired educational experience, and job satisf...

OBJECTIVE Fundamental skills testing is now required for certification in general surgery. No model for assessing fundamental endovascular skills exists. Our objective was to develop a model that tests the fundamental endovascular skills and differentiates competent from noncompetent performance. METHODS The Fundamentals of Endovascular Surgery model was developed in silicon and virtual-reali...

BACKGROUND Surgical education is evolving under the dual pressures of an enlarging body of knowledge required during residency and mounting work-hour restrictions. Changes in surgical residency training need to be based on available educational models and research to ensure successful training of surgeons. Experiential learning theory, developed by David Kolb, demonstrates the importance of ind...

HYPOTHESIS The recent increase in female medical school enrollment and emphasis on lifestyle considerations for both men and women pose challenges for residency recruitment and retention. This study was designed to assess interest in part-time surgical training. We hypothesized that more women than men would be interested in this option. DESIGN A Web-based survey soliciting demographic inform...

The joint manpower initiative by the Department of Health and Social Security and the Joint Consultants Committee provides the latest and perhaps the most hopeful stimulus to solve the problems of medical manpower in the acute hospital services.' It has been recognised for some time that career prospects for junior doctors in the acute medical and surgical specialties have become intolerable.2 ...

The purpose of this study was to compare practice patterns of all rural and non-rural surgeons in Iowa. Additionally, the investigators compared the procedures performed by 6 practicing general surgeons in rural Iowa to the case representation, by category, recommended by the ACGME for graduation from an accredited general surgery residency program. The authors recommend that changes in general...