AccessSurgery’s Custom Curriculum is a cutting-edge functionality that enables program directors to create, track, and report usage of surgical rotations online. With the Custom Curriculum surgical programs are freed to build a resource that matches their unique needs – mapping AccessSurgery content and capabilities to their educational structure.

Program directors can:

1. Create a rotation and topic
2. Select related reference content, videos, and animations from AccessSurgery
3. Assign board review quizzes; customize the number of questions and set the passing grade
4. Link out to references or other web-based resources
5. Schedule grand rounds, lectures, or other offline activities
6. Download and save usage reports organized by resident or by rotation

As an alternative to creating rotations from scratch, program directors can choose to modify existing rotations. They can also add their own rotations to the Shared Library for other programs to view and adopt.

For residents, the Custom Curriculum provides a powerful educational tool. When they log on, the residents view the available rotations from their program director, as well as their own individual progress by rotation.

Residents can choose to login anonymously if they don’t want a particular session to be tracked.

To learn more about implementing the Custom Curriculum at your institution, please contact us.

The AccessSurgery E-Newsletter provides regular updates on new AccessSurgery features and content additions. Our special QuickTest feature (coming in late 2006) will quiz your surgical knowledge and compare your results to those of your peers.

Click here to sign up for the free AccessSurgery E-Newsletter

Later this year we’ll be adding content from Schwartz’s Principles of Surgery Self-Assessment and Board Review to AccessSurgery. The content will be integrated by topic with the questions from Surgery Review Illustrated to build a database of review questions.

We’re simultaneously looking at ways to enhance the Board Review functionality. For example, we may offer users the option to eliminate questions they’ve already taken or to refresh and take questions from the full database.

Drop us a line and let us know what features you’d most like to see.

AccessSurgery launched on July 18th!

We already have a schedule of updates planned, as well as some new features in development. We’d like to hear your feedback as well, so feel free to post a comment.

The press release announcing AccessSurgery follows:

MCGRAW-HILL PROFESSIONAL LAUNCHES
MEDIA-RICH, ONLINE RESOURCE FOR SURGICAL EDUCATION

NEW YORK, July 18, 2006 — McGraw-Hill Professional, a leading global provider of information resources for the scientific and medical communities, today announced the release of AccessSurgery, a media-rich resource for surgical education that combines leading McGraw-Hill references with surgical videos and animations.

AccessSurgery is the first online resource for surgeons organized by key topics to reflect the Accreditation College for Graduate Medical Education’s (ACGME) mandate for a general surgery core curriculum. AccessSurgery also helps address two of the ACGME’s core competencies of medical knowledge and practice-based learning and improvement. With over 1,400 board review questions and answers and the ability to track and report scores, AccessSurgery is ideal for residents studying for the American Board of Surgery In-Training Examination (ABSITE) as well as for practicing surgeons seeking recertification.

Surgeons simply select a core curriculum topic or choose a procedure/operation to find relevant content from more than 12,000 pages of leading McGraw-Hill surgery references, including:

• Schwartz’s Principles of Surgery, 8th Edition
• CURRENT Surgical Diagnosis & Treatment, 12th Edition
• Zollinger’s Atlas of Surgical Operations, 8th Edition
• Skandalakis’ Surgical Anatomy
• Surgery Review Illustrated
• CURRENT Consult Surgery

AccessSurgery complements these surgical references with an integrated library of multimedia instructional materials, such as narrated, chapterized surgical videos from Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and surgical animations adapted from Zollinger’s Atlas of Surgical Operations, 8th Edition. Surgeons can tailor their searches to find just videos or images, or they can search the full site.

Continuously evolving, AccessSurgery delivers text updates, editor’s journal reviews, and video podcasts (vodcasts) that highlight key surgical techniques from the editors of Schwartz’s Principles of Surgery, 8th edition. The fully integrated resource also includes a comprehensive drug database updated in real-time, one-click access to related government guidelines, a differential diagnosis tool with over 100 symptoms and diseases, and detailed cancer staging tables. For subscribers and non-subscribers alike, the AccessSurgery blog provides a public forum for keeping abreast of the latest advances in surgery and debating the merits of different surgical approaches.

“AccessSurgery offers a wealth of unparalleled references, animations, and videos that improve surgical skills for residents while providing critical support for program directors in meeting ACGME requirements,” said Michael Hays, vice president of McGraw-Hill Professional’s Digital group.

AccessSurgery is guided by a preeminent advisory board:

• Gerard M. Doherty, M.D., Norman W. Thompson Professor of Surgery and Residency Program Director for Surgery, University of Michigan
• F. Charles Brunicardi, M.D., DeBakey/Bard Professor and Chairman, Michael E. DeBakey Department of Surgery, Baylor College of Medicine
• Eric A. Rose, M.D., Morris and Rose Milstein/Johnson & Johnson Professor of Surgery and Chairman, Department of Surgery, Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons

The latest addition to McGraw-Hill Professional’s offering of online medical resources, AccessSurgery is the first in a series of specialty-focused sites that build directly upon the success of AccessMedicine, an online service that provides access to numerous world-renowned McGraw-Hill medical references for general practitioners and medical students.

AccessSurgery is now in beta 2, which means we’re putting the final touches on the site before launch. It’s coming together nicely — at least from my myopic perspective.

Here’s a screengrab from one of the narrated animations, adapted from Zollinger’s Atlas of Surgical Operations. You can autoplay the entire operation or skip to the section of your choice. We’re planning to produce 40 of these animations and to integrate them with related content throughout the site.