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66th Annual Meeting of the German Society of Neurosurgery (DGNC)
Friendship Meeting with the Italian Society of Neurosurgery (SINch)

German Society of Neurosurgery (DGNC)

7 - 10 June 2015, Karlsruhe

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Resident education in Germany – preliminary results of a multinational EANS survey

Meeting Abstract

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  • Martin N. Stienen - Neurochirurgie, Hopitaux Medecins Geneve, Switzerland
  • Oliver P. Gautschi - Neurochirurgie, Hopitaux Medecins Geneve, Switzerland
  • David Netuka - Department of Neurosurgery, Charles University, 1st Medical Faculty, Central Military Hospital, Prague, Czech Republic
  • Andreas Demetriades - Department of Neurosurgery, Western General Hospital, Edinburgh, United Kingdom
  • Dominique Kuhlen - Department of Neurosurgery, Ente Ospedaliero Cantonale, Lugano, Switzerland
  • Jens Gempt - Neurochirurgische Klinik, Klinikum Rechts der Isar, Technische Universität München, München, Germany
  • Karl Schaller - Neurochirurgie, Hopitaux Medecins Geneve, Switzerland
  • Florian Ringel - Neurochirurgische Klinik, Klinikum Rechts der Isar, Technische Universität München, München, Germany

Deutsche Gesellschaft für Neurochirurgie. 66. Jahrestagung der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Neurochirurgie (DGNC). Karlsruhe, 07.-10.06.2015. Düsseldorf: German Medical Science GMS Publishing House; 2015. DocP 176

doi: 10.3205/15dgnc574, urn:nbn:de:0183-15dgnc5745

Published: June 2, 2015

© 2015 Stienen et al.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. See license information at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

Outline

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Objective: Neurosurgical education at present is handled differently in the various European countries and the introduction of the European Working time directive has a substantial impact on the future of the neurosurgical specialty.

Method: An open survey, accessible via the EANS website and addressed to all neurosurgical residents that are members of the EANS was introduced in 05/2014. Participants were invited to state their opinion regarding the current situation of theoretical and practical neurosurgical education as well as regarding their working time. Data was collected in an online database and subsequently analysed using GraphPad Prism 5.0c for Mac.

Results: Of a total of 400 responses, 316 fulfilled the criteria for analysis. Fifty-three German residents (69% male, 29% in 1st - 3rd year of training, 75% occupied in a university hospital) were compared to 263 residents from other European countries of the same age, gender, year of training and type of facility. Overall, residents from Germany were similarly satisfied with the theoretical education, while they tended to be less satisfied with their practical/operative education (p=.061). The duration of neurosurgical training until permission to perform surgery independently differed significantly (p=.027) - German residents were exposed to the operation room (OR) at a somewhat later stage of their education. Still, the mean amount of peripheral nerve-, burr-hole-, spine-, and cranial surgeries per resident/month was similar when compared internationally. The absolute amount of working hours, as well as the percentage of OR-exposure or administrative work was similar. The satisfaction concerning the amount of working time was similar with 17.3% of German residents estimating their working time as too much. 36.5% of German residents indicated that they received an inadequate clinical education, and 61.5% were worried about their future career chances; both being in line with the situation in the rest of Europe.

Conclusions: These preliminary results of the survey indicate that the clinical education in Germany is perceived to be similar by German residents as by their colleagues in other EANS member states. Still, a significant number of German neurosurgical residents are worried about the quality of education and the majority are concerned about their future career prospects.