Elsevier

Gastrointestinal Endoscopy

Volume 76, Issue 3, September 2012, Pages 482-490
Gastrointestinal Endoscopy

Core curriculum
Colonoscopy core curriculum

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gie.2012.04.438Get rights and content

Introduction

Identifying the skills required to perform colonoscopy safely, effectively, and comfortably is the aim of this document. Specifics on training and competency assessment of these skills are also covered. Additional information on endoscopy training can be found in the ASGE's ā€œPrinciples of Training in Gastrointestinal Endoscopyā€ and the combined professional societies' core curriculum.1, 2 These core documents are pertinent and are recommended to colonoscopy trainers and trainees alike.

Section snippets

Goals of Training

Trainees are required to learn how to maximize visualization of the colonic and terminal ileal mucosa, minimize patient discomfort, and ensure the appropriate identification, removal, or ablation of lesions and other therapeutic techniques. These skills come with mastery of the individual core elements of the procedure. The core technical and cognitive skills are listed in Table 1 and are covered in detail. The core skills to be covered can also be classified by the Accreditation Council for

Duration of training

The duration of colonoscopy training needed to achieve minimal competence in colonoscopy varies from one trainee to another. It is well understood that simply completing some absolute number of procedures or training for some duration does not ensure competence, but these estimates can be helpful to training programs in determining how much time and resources are devoted to colonoscopy training to ensure all of a program's trainees can achieve basic competence. Recent research has supported

Assessment of competence

An important, but often overlooked, part of colonoscopy training is assessing the trainees to ensure that the requisite skills have been acquired. Traditional assessment has typically been based on rather informal global pass/fail type evaluations performed near the end of training. This has continued despite more than a decade of experts calling for ongoing objective skills assessment. This is primarily because of the difficulty of defining what constitutes competence in both the cognitive and

Disclosure

Dr McHenry, Consultant for Conmed Endoscopic Technology, Boston Scientific; Honorarium, Cook Endoscopy; Dr Shami, Consultant, Olympus America; Dr DiMaio, Consultant, Boston Scientific Corp. All other authors disclosed no financial relationships relevant to this publication.

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    This document is a product of the ASGE Training Committee. This document was reviewed and approved by the Governing Board of the ASGE.

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