The impact of shortened training times on the discipline of vascular surgery in the United Kingdom

Political initiatives and European health and safety working time regulations have combined to reduce the time available for surgical training in the United Kingdom in the future by a third. For the safety of patient care, surgeons must evolve strategies to cope with these reduced training times so that they preserve the current high level of competence exhibited by UK trainees when they attain the right to independent surgical practice recognized by appointment as a Consultant Surgeon. Such strategies include a focus on dedicated training time, the use of simulators, and a move towards progression based on satisfactory completion of a defined curriculum and competency assessment rather than the amount of time served. With insufficient time to train in every aspect of general surgery, a move towards fragmentation into its sub-speciality components seems unavoidable. Such a move offers an opportunity to re-evaluate conventional surgical training and to consider the evolution of a system-specific vascular specialist with patient-focused expertise in vascular surgery, endovascular radiology, and vascular medicine.