About SCORE

The Surgical Council on Resident Education is a nonprofit consortium formed in 2006 by the principal organizations involved in U.S. surgical education. SCORE's mission is to improve the education of general surgery residents (trainees) in the United States through the development of a standard national curriculum for general surgery residency training. SCORE has also created a website, the General Surgery Resident Curriculum Portal, to deliver educational content aligned with the curriculum to general surgery residents and residency programs.

The new competency-based curriculum will define the specialty of general surgery and provide greater assurance that residents are receiving sufficient training in all areas. The curriculum will focus on the five years of progressive education and training which constitute general surgery residency in the U.S., after medical school but prior to independent practice.*

The curriculum is being developed in accordance with the six competencies required of a graduating resident: patient care and procedural skills; medical knowledge; professionalism; communication; practice-based learning; and systems-based practice. SCORE began its curriculum development with the patient care component and is now proceeding to the other competencies.

The member organizations of SCORE are:

American Board of Surgery (ABS)

American College of Surgeons (ACS)

American Surgical Association (ASA)

Association of Program Directors in Surgery (APDS)

Association for Surgical Education (ASE)

Residency Review Committee for Surgery (RRC-Surgery)

Society of American Gastrointestinal and Endoscopic Surgeons (SAGES)

SCORE is uniquely positioned to foster change in surgical resident education as it brings together the two main regulatory organizations in surgery (ABS and RRC-Surgery), professional organizations (ACS and SAGES), senior academic organization (ASA), and surgical education organizations (APDS and ASE). Representatives from these organizations meet regularly to guide SCORE's mission and objectives. The seven member organizations provide all of SCORE's funding.

A surgical technical skills curriculum being developed by the ACS and APDS will eventually be integrated into the new curriculum. It is currently available for free from the ACS website. SCORE is also supporting an operative performance rating system in development at Southern Illinois University, which will be incorporated as an assessment tool. SCORE has also endorsed the ACS' Fundamentals of Surgery program, which covers basic clinical scenarios for first-year residents.

As part of its mission, SCORE is also examining issues related to surgical training, such as the assessment of technical competency, the role of simulation in surgical education, the teaching and assessment of professional behaviors, and faculty development. Members of SCORE are also investigating best practices in surgical education in other countries.

* For information on the steps to becoming a doctor in the U.S., see this page of the American Medical Association's website.

SCORE is a nonprofit consortium of the following U.S. surgical organizations with the mission of improving resident education in general surgery and its related specialties and subspecialties: