Ambulatory Care Experience For Neurosurgical Residents During the First 24 Months of Neurosurgical Training
It is essential that neurosurgical residents have some ambulatory care experience during their neurosurgical rotations. The Residency Program Committee recommends a half day per week ambulatory care experience during the first 24 of the 42 months of neurosurgical clinical training. The resident should have the opportunity to assess new patients, formulate a diagnosis and treatment plan and then discuss these with the staff member in some detail. The choice of ambulatory clinics should be based partly on the resident’s own choices and career pathway. The Division Head should interview the residents at the onset of each rotation to discuss the possible choices of clinics.
Whenever possible, the resident should see as many new patients as possible. Charts and x-rays should be made available by the office staff in the same fashion as they are made available to the staff neurosurgeon.
For each rotation the Division Head should establish a definite rotation schedule with the name of the clinician, location of the clinic, date, time and resident allocation. Ideally, the resident taking part in the ambulatory care experience should have no on call duties during this time. This will be a half day, three hour exposure. The chief resident in each training site will make the decision as to whether a given resident is needed to be called away in order to handle an emergency on the ward, ICU or in the Emergency Department.
