The Residency Review Committee for Surgery and the training of vascular surgeons

This article reviews the activities and actions of the Residency Review Committee (RRC) for Surgery in the accreditation process of of vascular surgery training programs since 1983.

The substantial changes of the Special Requirements for Graduate Education in General Vascular Surgery are discussed for 1983, 1987, 1989, and 1992. The rank-ordered list of RRC citations is reviewed. The national resident operative statistics for the past 4 years are reported for both general and vascular surgery residents.

Changes in the Special Requirements have included deletion of two of the four types of programs, elimination of the need for institutional programs in specialties other than core general or thoracic surgery, and relaxation of the restriction against concurrent resident assignment. The most common citation continues to be the negative impact on general surgery residents. Nevertheless national operative statistics show a favorable increase in case load for both general and vascular surgery residents.

Future challenges to surgical education and practice are summarized; the solutions to these challenges will require cooperative efforts of the RRC, the American Board of Surgery, and a number of specialty societies and credentialing or regulatory bodies.