Educating the Surgeons of the Future: The Successes, Pitfalls and Principles of the ISCP

Abstract

Surgeons have a complex role that has proved difficult for educationalists to unravel. During the 1990s an increase in interest in an evidence-based programme for surgical training, public calls for increased accountability and a professional need for training programmes in line with modern employment law led to calls for curricular reform in surgical education. At a similar time, a report called Unfinished Business commissioned by the Chief Medical Officer proposed that the profession should consider time-limited, curriculum-based training. These factors pushed the royal colleges and the government to form a group called Modernising Medical Careers (MMC). The aim of this group was to review the structure of postgraduate medical curricula. The reforms that resulted were, perhaps, the most controversial changes ever to be made in surgical education.