UEMS Section and Board of Paediatric Surgery-A Historical Perspective

The European Union of Medical Specialists (UEMS) Section and Board of Pediatric surgery was founded more than 40 years ago. Since then major activities have been related to the improvement of quality of care of pediatric surgery in Europe. Remarkable success was achieved in the development of pediatric surgery as an independent specialty all over Europe. Other major successful activities of the UEMS Section and Board of Pediatric Surgery consisted of the development of a high-quality European examination and delineating a minimal common standard in pediatric surgery training in the form of European training requirements. Recommendations drawn from examination experience support that candidates who achieve weaker passes in part 1 may wish to consider more practice before attempting part 2 due to the weak correlation between the two scores. It may be helpful for candidates to consider having some experience working in an English-speaking clinical setting, if not truly fluent in English, to improve their chances of being successful in the part 2 examination. Other achievements of the Section were accreditation of the training centers in Europe and European Census in pediatric surgery project. All the aforementioned activities led to standardization and harmonization of pediatric surgery, as well as contributed to increasing quality of pediatric surgical service throughout Europe.