Abstract
In Japan, a new training system for junior residents was introduced in 2004. According to this new system, junior residents must take clinical training courses for 2 years at designated hospitals. They have to study five main fields consisting of internal medicine, general surgery, gynecology, pediatrics, and public health. Because our medical center already provided our own clinical training system to junior residents before this new system was introduced, we have a lot of junior residents who not only who want to become neurosurgeons, but who also are interested in neurosurgery, though they belong to another department. It is very important for us to know what they want to learn from neurosurgical training and analyze this information in order to deliver high quality education. Here we report the results of a 3 year survey about their impressions and requests for our department.
All junior residents who attended the neurosurgical training course from 2008 to 2011 filled out a questionnaire when they finished the course.
Analysis of the questionnaire results revealed that the areas which interested them most consisted of intensive care, and perioperative neurosurgical activities besides minor procedures such as lumbar puncture and intratracheal intubation. It also pointed out that there is room for some improvement in our clinical conference and journal club activities.
The analysis of our questionnaire clearly revealed what our aspiring young surgeons want from their neurosurgical training and it shows that such a questionnaire is a useful tool to get feedback concerning many points from junior residents which can then be used to improve the training system.
