The Telematics Surgical Training Logbook in Belgium: dream or reality?

The French Chamber of the Recognition Commission for General Surgery decided to launch the Telematics Surgical Logbook for the academic period 2012-2013 which replaced the previous excel version logbook of surgery. The aim of this article is to describe the process of development, the possibilities and the configuration of this program.

In this telematics logbook, statistical feedback is interactive and allows surgeons candidates, supervisors and members of the Commission to follow training in real time. Utilities were developed to make the correlation with the previous logbook allowing all levels trainees to be recruited. Quotas of operations, fixed as 38% of the standard deviation, less than average values, are computed for the different surgical common trunks (after 2, 4 and 6 years). The trainee's autonomy can be estimated by a "corrected fraction" of activity taking into account the heaviness of operations.

Until October 2014, 218 surgeons in specialization and 32 supervisors were registered. We counted around 118.000 surgical procedures of which 52.600 were included in comparative statistics. At the end of October 2014 the first 29 annual logbooks, including 4 agreements, were analyzed and closed by the Commission.

This telematics tool, able to work on computers, tablets and Smartphones, facilitates the mission of the surgical Commission and gives the cartography of the traineeship organization.