The education of future orthopaedists--dèjá vu.

Abstract

If the title looks familiar, it should. Except for “deja vu,” it is exactly the same title that was used in Dr. W.F. Enneking’s Presidential Address to the American Orthopaedic Association (AOA) in Palm Beach, Florida, on May 16, 19841. I chose this title and subject because of my interest and involvement in graduate medical education in orthopaedic surgery and also to pay homage to an individual who continues, even in “retirement” at age seventy-five, to take time to educate orthopaedic residents with a yearly orthopaedic pathology and oncology course. Throughout his career, Dr. Enneking has spent numerous hours educating medical students and residents. For more than forty years, he has taught a national two-week course for orthopaedic surgery residents as well as a one-week course for medical students. He used personal time, in addition to professional and clinical time, to teach medical students. All of this is in addition to the time that he spent in weekly didactic sessions with orthopaedic residents and oncology fellows at the University of Florida. In fact, the sole reason that I became an orthopaedic oncologist, and one of the reasons that I became an academic orthopaedic surgeon, is that I was fortunate enough to attend one of his pathology courses as a resident. The experience was so inspiring that I took a clinical fellowship with this master educator the following year. Some of my concerns in this Presidential Address on graduate medical education in orthopaedic surgery were expressed by Dr. Enneking in 1984, and unfortunately these issues have not been resolved. In my opinion, the quality of graduate orthopaedic education has continued to deteriorate. The themes that I will address are, first, the concept of a resident as a student; second, the deplorable present resident-selection process; third, the weak links in evaluating resident …