[How to become a trauma surgeon: analysis of the current situation and concepts for career development in the new common field of orthopaedics and trauma surgery--part II]

Abstract

An increasing lack of young fellowship trainees in operative medicine, particularly in orthopaedics and traumatology and the various options to counteract this problem during the phases until the individual decision for residency and the fellowship program is made, were the focus of part I. The present part concentrates on residency and the fellowship phase including the individual perspectives after successful training. With respect to an attractive and highly qualified training in orthopaedics and traumatology, three essential points are to be made: a timely general framework, the establishment of a clinic-specific management of training and a general evaluation of training in the sense of a benchmarking system. A flexible work schedule including structural entities, such as an in-hospital day care facility for children, a structured and reliable curriculum of training according to a model curriculum to be adapted to the corresponding training unit including options of rotation to other facilities of training and the integration of nationwide education and mentoring programs represent further elements of an attractive training program. Thus the quality of training will become a decisive criterion of selection. The fellowship program for specialized traumatology inevitably leads to limitations of the whole spectrum of the field with an increasing specialization. In the future the contents of fellowship training will need a well-considered adaptation to the clinical needs and realities in the light of the emerging national trauma network program. A wide field of activity will open up to specialists in orthopaedics and traumatology with a focus on special traumatology considering the rapid changing field of hospital and outpatient care. Thus a systematic and creative reorganization of the residency and fellowship phases will overcome any problem of attractiveness.