The Joint Committee for Thoracic Surgery education.

Abstract

T he specialty of thoracic surgery, encompassing both general thoracic surgery and cardiac surgery, has matured greatly during the past 30 years. The body of knowledge prerequisite for becoming an effective thoracic surgeon has also expanded with growth and maturation in the fields of cardiology, pulmonary medicine, gastroenterology, oncology, and vascular biology. Although continuing medical education (ie, post-specialty education) has helped serve as a surrogate for more formal education, there is a sense at each of the educational domains that rethinking of the manner in which thoracic surgeons are educated is an imperative. Certainly, the notion that thoracic surgical education can be grafted upon traditional general surgical education is rapidly becoming archaic. Many groups have a vested interest in the education of thoracic surgeons. Consumers (formerly called patients) are interested in receiving optimal thoracic surgical care, but understand little of the requirements imposed on a physician to fulfill that mandate. General surgery educators have valued thoracic surgical trainees as an important part of the resident workforce. Thoracic surgery program directors have experienced increasing frustration in having to impart the vast body of knowledge to their students in the defined time allocated to them amidst the pressures of heavy clinical demands. No matter how great the will, executing change in an educational process is extraordinarily complex. The issues relate to the educational material to which residents must be exposed, the duration and preparation for that exposure, standardization of educational material presented to trainees, altered expectations for candidates for board certification by examiners, and altered