AIMS AND OBJECTIVES

This curriculum document establishes the training aims together with the objectives against which (i) basic specialist training programmes and (ii) the progress of individual Senior House Officers (SHOs) in ophthalmology should be assessed. It also sets out some of the arrangements for such assessment. The Colleges intend to review the Curriculum regularly in response to changes in practice so that SHO training evolves and improves continually.

Appropriate transitional arrangements will apply during the introduction (or future amendment) of the Curriculum so as not to disadvantage existing trainees. Basic Specialist Training (BST) is intended to provide a programme of learning which facilitates the acquisition of knowledge, understanding, skills and attitudes to a level appropriate to an ophthalmic trainee who has been fully prepared to begin his/her Higher Specialist Training (HST) as a Specialist Registrar (SpR) in Ophthalmology. Evidence of such attainment after at least two years in training placements recognised by the Training Committee of the Royal College of Ophthalmologists and by possession (after examination) of the Diploma of Membership of either the Royal College of Ophthalmologists or the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh will result in the award of a Certificate of Eligibility to Enter Higher Specialist Training (CEEHST). SHOs are also required to maintain an adequate standard of logbook documenting their experience and demonstrating a culture of personal audit.

This BST Curriculum should be read in conjunction with:
i. The Examination Syllabus for the Diploma of Membership of the Royal College of Ophthalmologists and/or the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh.

ii. ‘Guide for Basic Specialist Training in Ophthalmology’, 1999 (Training Committee, Royal College of Ophthalmologists)

iii. ‘Tomorrow’s Doctors’, December 1993 (General Medical Council)

iv. ‘The Surgeon’s Duty of Care’, October 1997 (The Senate of Surgery of Great Britain and Ireland)