CUSEC

HISTORY OF CUSEC

The Canadian Undergraduate Surgical Education Committee was born in 1986 under the leadership of Dr. Rudy Danzinger from Winnipeg. The Chairmen’s Council or Committee of all the Chairmen of Departments of Surgery in the Canadian Medical Schools mandated the coordination of undergraduate teaching in Surgery to develop a document outlining the “Surgical Component of the Undergraduate MD Program.” Initially, this was an ad hoc committee and the document from May 1986, presented in September 1986, outlined the aim of the MD program, the Undergraduate Surgical Program, and the commitments for the Departments of Surgery.

The preamble of the document states that it provides a blueprint for objectives of undergraduate surgical teaching. It allows flexibility, as each school will have strengths and emphases. It contains general overall goals and more specific surgical goals:

  1. For the students to achieve (at the completion of the MD Program), a defined body of
knowledge, skills and attitudes necessary for the recognition and understanding of the
management of patients with diseases, which may be treated by surgeons.

  2. A second specific goal was to contribute to the foundation necessary for the graduating student
to enter into any field of medical practice.

It then outlines the role of the Departments of Surgery in exposing students throughout their Program to comprehensive instruction regarding diagnostic skills and basic knowledge relevant to the surgical specialties. The skills of acquisition, interpretation, synthesis and recording of information, critical appraisal and self-directed learning are all elaborated on in the document. A series of patient problems were listed and prioritized according to “must know”, “should know” and “may know”. This classification served for several years as the basis for objectives in several medical schools.

For many years, the Chair of this ad hoc Committee became the leader of CUSEC and was appointed by the Canadian Association of Surgical Chairs (CASC), which evolved from the Chairmen’s Council. The Chair would have a mandate of 3 years and the group would meet twice a year, once in conjunction with the Association of Surgical Education (ASE) and once with the Royal College meeting. It would gather all the Surgical Clerkship Directors and Coordinators as well as surgeons and residents interested in developing Surgical Undergraduate Education.

Objectives Defined

At these meetings, the objectives were refined and CUSEC members collaborated with the ASE in designing the multiple editions of the “Manual of Surgical Objectives” which formed the basis of a textbook: Essentials of General Surgery and later on the Essentials of Surgical Specialties, edited by Peter Lawrence.

The Curriculum Committee of the ASE prepared the 4th edition of the manual. This edition was a departure from the systems approach to the problems-based learning experience. There were 29 objectives or chapter headings to be used by clerkship students and educators. Each one had “assumptions of previous knowledge of normal anatomy and function” acquired in the first year of medical school.

At several meetings of CUSEC, a Canadian version of these objectives was developed and at the 2004 ASE meeting held in Houston the Canadian objectives were approved. These were adopted in several departments and will be revisited soon.

Educational Accomplishments

One major accomplishment of CUSEC was to initiate and continue on a biannual basis a Canadian Surgical Education Symposium aimed at Clerkship Directors and Administrative Assistants, as well as Heads of Departments, Deans and Associate Deans of the Medical Schools. The symposia were theme based and included a pre-meeting workshop for new Clerkship Directors and those seeking promotion through the educational stream. The organizing committee invited speakers and papers for presentation. The meetings were held across Canada, in sites such as Montréal, Banff, Halifax, Whistler, Lake Louise, Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ottawa, Edmonton, Vancouver and others. During the Symposium, CUSEC awarded the John Provan Surgical Educator Award to the outstanding surgeon nominated by his or her Department Head and selected by the CUSEC Executive Committee.

The final CUSEC symposium was held in Vancouver in November 2017. The following year, a retreat, chaired by Dr. Geoffrey Blair and Dr. Andreana Bütter, was held in London, Ontario. The concept of a new Canadian surgical education conference was thus developed to include topics in both undergraduate and postgraduate education. The Canadian Conference for the Advancement of Surgical Education, or C-CASE, was born. Endorsed by the Canadian Association of Surgical Chair/Chiefs of Canada, the inaugural C-CASE conference was held in September 2019 in Ottawa, Ontario, with Dr. Robert Feibel as local host surgeon. This conference was well attended by Deans, Surgical Chairs/Chiefs, surgeons, medical students and residents from across the country. All abstracts were published in the Canadian Journal of Surgery along with select papers.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the C-CASE conferences were held virtually. In 2022, C-CASE returned to in-person conference, with an option for virtual attendance and was held in Montréal.

Finally, CUSEC welcomes collaboration on clerkship resources. Please visit our Clerkship Resources page to add any medical student resources you would like to share or email us at CUSECinfo@gmail.com.