THE EXPERIENTIAL CURRICULUM - AN ALTERNATE MODEL FOR ANESTHESIA EDUCATION

The shift to direct entry into residency training from medical school for all graduates will offer new challenges for anaesthesia training p rogrammes. In this paper we argue that it also offers us an opportunit y to re-evaluate our current approach to anaesthesia education. Emphas is in the residency programmes should be to provide trainees with clin ical experiences and stimulation that will develop the required tradit ional competencies. If should also cultivate competency in clinical de cision-making, intuition and judgement. Our purpose is to generate dis cussion by proposing an alternate curriculum model, the experiential c urriculum. The basic premise is that learning is a process and outcome is to a large extent related to what the learner does. The process be gins with an experience that provides for observation and reflection. Integration of the thoughts provides the basis for executing either ex isting or new actions. In the experiential curriculum residency traini ng and learning are enhanced by documenting and critically evaluating the experiences to which the resident ir exposed. Included within such a structured programme are the methodologies of problem-based and evi dence based learning. Faculty development will be required to help the resident pursue these skills of self-evaluation and efficient learnin g. We believe that incorporation of an experiential curriculum into th e residency training programme will achieve the goals listed above and allow maturation of the process of lifelong learning. It will also al low greater achievement of the application of new information to one's practice.