Fostering and Assessing Professionalism and Communication Skills in Neurosurgical Education

Incorporation of the 6 Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education(ACGME) core competencies into surgical training has proven a considerable challenge particularly for the two primarily behavioral competencies, professionalism and interpersonal and communication skills. We report on experience with two specific interventions to foster the teaching and continuous evaluation of these competencies for neurosurgery residents. These two interventions are Neurosurgery Boot Camp courses designed to teach ACGME core competencies and neurosurgical milestones that define milestones for residents. The full impact and success of the boot camps and milestones are yet to be determined, but early data from the boot camps has shown positive signs as pre- and post-course surveys demonstrated a significant and sustained increase in knowledge due to the boot camps. Further, Neurosurgery was one of 7 early Milestone adopter specialties, beginning use in July, 2013. Early milestone data will establish benchmarks prior to utilization for “high stake” decisions such as promotion, graduation, and termination.