What impact will shortened training have on urological service delivery?

INTRODUCTION Modernisation of Medical Careers dictates a shortening of the training required to achieve consultant status. Precisely what type of work these consultants could be expected to accomplish, and be trained to do, is not clear. The objective of this. study was to demonstrate a method of stratifying urological workload so as to determine what a urological trainee, undergoing shortened training, might be expected to do as a consultant and to use this stratification to help manpower planning within the specialty. PATIENTS AND METHODS A cohort study of all urological activity undertaken over a 3-year period in a single teaching hospital in the UK was performed. All out-patient, in-patient or day-case activity within the urological department was analysed in the years 2000-2002. Urological activity was stratified: according to the absolute numbers of patients presenting for different types of out-patient consultation, the grade of complexity of any surgical intervention undertaken, and the theatre resource consumed by the study population. RESULTS Utilising prospectively collected data, it Was possible to aggregate information about the contributions generalist and sub-specialty activity made to the overall workload of a urological unit. Whilst the majority of out-patient activity, and almost 88% of the surgical workload, could be accomplished by consultants undergoing shortened training, 11.9% of specialised urological activity,, consuming nearly 43% of the available theatre resource, was outwith the remit of such a specialist. CONCLUSIONS Shortened training seems able to satisfy the service delivery needs of the majority of out-patient and day-case urological activity. It will not, however, fulfil the need for subspecialty-based training required to cope with the large minority of patients necessitating complex surgical intervention. Specialist training programmes, promoting advanced operative skills, need to be evolved in parallel to shortened training so as to ensure global urological service provision for the future.