Regional orthopaedic courses--rationale and practice.

Background: The intensity and length of higher surgical training has changed, and with this the need for a more formalised training programme has been recognised. With limited budgets for training and the high cost of national training days, it was proposed that within the Wessex Deanery regional courses should be run to complement the existing weekly training session.

Methods: In 1998, a questionnaire was sent to all the orthopaedic consultants and specialist registrars within the region to identify the training requirements of the specialist registrars and the availability of consultants to organise and teach during these training courses.

Results: A regionally published report based on the questionnaire's findings identified these training requirements as indicated by both the specialist registrars and the consultants. This information has been used to organise eight 1-day training courses using the expertise of consultants within the region with more planned in the near future.

Conclusions: Four years following this report, we identified the training requirements within the Wessex region and have successfully run regional courses to meet this requirement.