European School for Training in Orthopaedics (ESTRO)

Currently, musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) including those resulting from trauma, directly affect the mobility, autonomy and quality of life of more than 100 million Europeans. For this reason orthopaedic and traumatology training is crucial in terms of establishing the foundations of the individual’s career in orthopaedics, and acquiring knowledge and skills to be used in his/her professional life after training. In Europe, thousands of orthopaedic and traumatology residents complete their training in hundreds of different organizations and institutions: the school’s heterogeneity, differences in language, culture and medical training, make the very varied and different orthopedic training in European countries and this has generated concerns about the standard of knowledge and professional competence of surgeons who have qualified in one country and move to practice in another. For this reason FORTE (Federation of Orthopaedic Trainees in Europe) expressed the need to homogenize the orthopedic training at European level through Summer School, teaching materials, workshops and webinars. During “FORTE Summit 2015” meeting held in Rolle Switzerland in February 2015, the representatives of 14 different European countries presented the current status of orthopaedic training in their countries. The biggest emphasis was placed on the fact that each country and even every single University follows a local education system instead of a standard education program. Another salient point discussed in the meeting was the lack of interuniversity exchange program that could allow orthopaedic assistants across Europe to face different disciplines and develop new perspectives. The goal of this project is to train trainees in orthopedics and traumatology European evenly and to prepare the EBOT (European Board of Orthopaedics and Traumatology) exam which receives participation across Europe under the auspices of EFORT (European Federation of Orthopaedics and Traumatology): is a significant example implemented for aligning orthopedic trainee. The EBOT is an annual exam, conducted in the English language. It's an equivalence examination known in several countries in Europe and successfully implemented every year, but it's not mandatory, since all European residents, currently, can choose to take the national exam managed by their own institutions. At present the EBOT examination comprises two parts, taken separately, with the written section sat in June in centres throughout Europe, and the oral examination taken in October. With the standardization of orthopedic training in Europe, the residents will be capable of recognizing more complex cases, their urgency and of arranging appropriate and timely onward referral. A clear pathway comprising rotations to other institutions or departments will be essential to guarantee the quality and quantity of content coverage across the generality of trauma and orthopaedics to allow completion of the training programme. Therefore only institutions that provide the full range of the orthopaedic and traumatology spectrum (some large acute hospitals and university departments) will be capable of providing the whole programme and the majority, if not all, will require the rotation of trainees to other units to complete their general training to European standards. The EBOT exam also contains an intermediate proof of mid-year: the Interim EBOT examination is valuable feedback on the progress of individual trainees to help them and their trainers to focus on future training. The anonymised results of the interim test are returned to both candidates and Training Directors, and show the candidate’s ranking relative to his/her peers, locally, nationally and internationally. Heads of Training also receive a global assessment of how their residents are doing and have the opportunity of comparing their performance with the other hospitals in the country or elsewhere in Europe for the first time. With this interi