In advance of the American Board of Surgery's Flexible Endoscopy Curriculum rollout, surgical residents and their program directors need to prepare for the mandate, General Surgery News reports.
Here's what you should know.
1. The curriculum will become mandatory for students graduating in spring 2018.
2. President of the Society of American Gastrointestinal and Endoscopic Surgeons Daniel Scott, MD, urged program directors and residents to start their preparation for the new curriculum as soon as possible.
3. In the 2017-18 academic year, graduating chief residents will need to show they're certified in the endoscopy curriculum before they can apply for the ABS General Surgery Qualifying Exam.
4. The exam has a failure rate of 23 percent. It's expected the failure rate will drop over time and it could take more than one attempt to pass.
SAGES is offering free takes for 160 residents who take the exam during the 2016-17 year.
5. The exam is in response to criticism over an insubstantial amount of training in flexible endoscopy practices.
6. There will be 50 training sites across the United States and Canada. Testing will be conducted at the SAGES annual meeting and at the American College of Surgeons' Clinical Congress.
For more information on the FES program, click here.
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