This meeting marks a milestone event for AGES – the ‘graduation’ of our first cohort of trainees who have successfully completed training at an AGES approved training site.  At the time of writing, 5 different sites  in Sydney, Melbourne and New Zealand will have fellows receiving their AGES Fellowships.

Logbooks for this group of trainees report that they operated for a mean number of 5 sessions per week (range 4-8); attended a mean of 9 meeting over their 2 year period of training (range 5-10); presented a mean of 7 times (range 4-10); published 3 peer-reviewed scientific papers (range 1-4) with 2 as first author (range 0-4). 

All trainees were found to be satisfactory in both their advanced procedures (including laparoscopic hysterectomy) and in their final supervisors reports.  Rankings for specific areas were 4-5/5 for all trainees. 

The number of procedures performed during the training period and is summarized in the following table:

Training sites showed wide variability in the types of procedures undertaken and the numbers performed, reflecting workload and the type of surgery performed at each individual training site.  All sites met the targets for what a trainee would be expected to achieve in their training period. 

These data support the initial concept of the AGES accredited training sites being able to project and complete a substantial surgical load for trainees that are employed at each accredited site.  Ongoing data collection and analyses will ensure that these standards continue to be met.