Assessing and improving the knowledge of orthopaedic foundation-year doctors.

BACKGROUND

modernising medical careers has been fully implemented nationally in the UK.(1) The foundation-year programme is the keystone of this plan, and as a consequence a large number of foundation trainees are exposed to specialties (e.g. orthopaedics) previously reserved for aspirant surgeons.(2) When coupled with the undergraduate curriculum changes instigated by the UK registry and accrediting body for medicine, the General Medical Council (GMC),(3,4) it appears self-evident that the type of training now being provided to these juniors is very different from that formerly available. We aimed to assess whether foundation-year doctors are being trained adequately.

METHOD

junior doctors were set an original test at the start of their orthopaedic training to assess their knowledge (this was based on orthopaedic consultants' expectations). After a succinct 2-week training programme aimed at meeting those expectations, the juniors were then retested using a different test to close the audit loop and assess if improvements had been made.

RESULTS

we show that set against the basic expectations of orthopaedic consultants, generic foundation-doctor education is inadequate. However, after a focussed teaching programme instigated at the beginning of the job, standards improved significantly. Our results also show that junior doctors' confidence and enjoyment of the speciality also increased.