Postgraduate training in anaesthesiology - A modular curriculum

Abstract

The primary objective of postgraduate medical education is to produce specialists who provide highest quality of health care to suffering patients and return them to the community in the most functional capability. The secondary objective is to advance the cause of science through research and training. A postgraduate, after undergoing the required training in anaesthesiology, should be able to recognise the health needs of the community and apply cognitive and psychomotor skills to provide optimal anaesthetic care. Additionally, the anaesthesiologist should function as a perioperative physician being adept in perioperative care, pain medicine and critical care medicine. The 3-year postgraduate curriculum comprises experience in basic, subspeciality and advanced anaesthesia training. This structured training programme with a curriculum of increasing difficulty and learning incorporates ascending grades of difficulty, posing a challenge to the trainee's intellect and technical skills. Experience in basic anaesthesia training is aimed to lay stress on basic and fundamental aspects of anaesthetic management. Subspeciality anaesthesia training is needed to lay stress on the theory, special considerations and practice of subdisciplines of anaesthesiology. This document proposes a modular-structured, continuous, objectively evaluated, systematic training process that is monitored frequently and periodically, such that the trainee, at the end of training, is capable of appropriate anaesthetic management of disease conditions in a wide variety of situations.