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Ann Thorac Surg 2001;72:1433-1437
© 2001 The Society of Thoracic Surgeons

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Report

"Change in the wind": report from the 2000 Thoracic Surgery Directors Association Retreat on Thoracic Surgery Graduate Medical Education

^a President, Thoracic Surgery Directors Association, USA

Address reprint requests to Dr Olinger, Medical College of Wisconsin, 9200 W Wisconsin Ave, Milwaukee, WI 53226

	Introduction

 
In October, 1999, the American Board of Thoracic Surgery (ABTS) resolved that "the ABTS change current policy regarding American Board of Surgery (ABS) certification so that at a point in the future, yet to be determined, ABS certification will become optional." This position was taken by the ABTS after exhaustive study and debate of the relevant issues and of evolving data pertinent to Thoracic Surgery Graduate Medical Education (TSGME), a topic of three major conferences in the last decade¹ and of the addresses of seven thoracic societal presidents, four of them in the last 6 years. Among the most provocative points that were considered by the Board were: (1) The vast expansion of fundamental knowledge and of operative approaches to cardiothoracic diseases currently required to educate the TS resident in a time-frame essentially unchanged since formal education in TS began in 1928; (2) a total duration of medical school and of GME that obligates the thoracic surgeon entering practice to be older, as compared to peers in other professions, and to be constrained by greater indebtedness; (3) a disturbingly diminished pool of applicants to TS residencies, with fewer US medical graduates applying than residency positions to fill; and (4) diminishing funding for TSGME occurring concomitantly with increasing financial burdens on academic thoracic surgery programs. The specific intent of the ABTS was to facilitate change if change were to be the desire of thoracic surgery educators and of the other parties in organized thoracic surgery vested with interest in, and responsibility for, the process and product of TSGME.

These interested parties embody the Joint Council on Thoracic Surgery Education (JCTSE), which was founded in 1997.² The JCTSE responded to the action of the ABTS with a straw man proposal for change to be considered by each parent of the JCTSE. That . . . [Full Text of this Article]

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