French national survey on neurology resident training

Background. - Over the past 20 years, the neurology specialty has changed because of the explosion of information and new treatment modalities that became available, and has consequently become more complex and diversified. The satisfaction of residents concerning their training and the competencies that they acquire has never been thoroughly assessed in France. Methods. - We conducted a national survey in order to assess (1) the methods for training and validation; (2) the level of knowledge that residents perceived to have acquired in different domains; and (3) their satisfaction towards training and their wishes. Results. - One hundred and eight residents replied to the survey. The main sources of training were local teaching (74%), personal work (61%), scientific (57%) and didactic (54%) papers. Residents seemed unable to acquire knowledge on all domains of the curriculum established at a national level, particularly for neurophysiology, neuropsychology, comatose state and sleep disorders, oncology and psychiatry. Even postgraduate year four residents were not fully competent with several technical tools, particularly neurophysiological tests. Fifty eight percent of residents were satisfied with their training, but 16% were not and 26% were half-hearted. Overall the residents were in favor of more standardization in their training, national-level certification, and would be keen on having access to clinics and the use of a follow-up monitoring chart. Conclusion. - Our results suggest that it would be useful to better identify the competencies that every neurologist should acquire and to use appropriate tools to reach these objectives. (c) 2008 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.