RACS launches Professional Skills Curriculum

RACS is proud to launch the publication of the Professional Skills Curriculum

Dr Rebecca Garland, an Otolaryngology Head and Neck surgeon in Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand, and chair of the working group who wrote the new curriculum presented the final version to RACS at the October 2022 meeting of the Committee of Surgical Education and Training (CSET) where it was endorsed unanimously.

To ensure safe and high-standard surgical care for our patients and communities, the RACS Professional Skills Curriculum was developed to guide training, learning, and assessment in eight of the 10 RACS competencies for SET Trainees, Specialist International Medical Graduates (SIMGs), and specialty trainers and supervisors. Surgical practice requires RACS Fellows to be competent across all 10 RACS competency domains.

This is the first time RACS has defined standards common to all surgical specialties. These will support learning and assessment for the competencies of collaboration and teamwork, communication, cultural competence and cultural safety, health advocacy, judgement and clinical decisionmaking, leadership and management, professionalism, and scholarship and teaching. It is hoped that clarifying behaviours in these competencies will complement specialty training curricula in medical expertise and technical expertise.

Dr Garland shared with the CSET the roles the RACS Surgical Competence and Performance Guide (2020) and Code of Conduct (2016) played in anchoring the RACS Professional Skills Curriculum to the RACS competencies and ethical and professional principles.

She celebrated the contribution of specialty training boards’ and committees’ collaborative efforts in the development process. There was widespread representation from surgical specialties and RACS education staff in the working group. Comments and feedback on several drafts were incorporated from RACS surgical specialties, associations, College sections, special interest groups, executive director for Surgical Affairs (Australia), surgical advisors in Aotearoa New Zealand, Indigenous Health Committee members, Māori Health Advisory Group members, RACS Trainees Association, community members, and other specialty medical colleges.

In introducing the approach to learning presented in the curriculum, Dr Garland described the ways learning outcomes in each competency build through stages of training—leading to graduate outcomes. She also emphasised the commonalities and overlap between the competencies and referred to learning and assessment tasks. These will integrate multiple competencies, weaving these concepts into existing teaching and assessment, and support Trainees and SIMGs to develop their skills.

Dr Garland said the curriculum, “is only the beginning of the journey. It will inform other documents and other platforms. It’s a reference guide, and for it to be effective, it must be a living document. It will only become meaningful when it’s used daily for teaching, learning, and assessment.” She reminded the group that this may create some challenges, particularly if supervisors and trainers are unfamiliar with the content or the standards. She reinforced that, “Not only do Trainees learn from us, but there will be times when we have to learn alongside the Trainees.” She also urged specialty supervisors and trainers to accept the challenge as an opportunity for growth and learning.

Emphasising the evolutionary and continuous nature of curriculum development, Dr Garland thanked Associate Professor Phil Truskett AM, who will lead the next phase of this project as he chairs a working group to develop

Professional Skills

Curriculum principles and guidelines for assessments aligned to the RACS Professional Skills Curriculum.

Dr Adrian Anthony, RACS Censor-in-Chief, commended Dr Garland and the team for the work undertaken to develop the curriculum, which he described as “practical and usable”. He agreed that the next step for training boards is to consider further how it is implemented and used.

If you have any questions about the RACS Professional Skills Curriculum please email Tamsin.Garrod@surgeons.org