Prof. Eric Weiss: the current status of residency training in USA
The 2017 Digestive Disease Institute Week (DDI Week) organized by the Cleveland Clinic was held successfully in Boca Raton, Florida, from Feb. 14th to 18th. As a grand feast in the field of digestive disease, the symposium gathered numerous experts from all over the world to have deeper discussions on hot topics in the digestive field, including Transanal Endoscopic Surgery (TES), Transanal Total Mesorectal Excision (TaTME), fecal Incontinence and Rectal Prolapse, Revisional Bariatric / Metabolic Interventions (RBMI), etc.
International meetings are always the excellent opportunities for us to meet, communicate and interact with our editorial board members, guest-editors, authors, reviewers, readers, speakers and attendees. During the meeting, we were able to make brief interviews with some of the renowned speakers, to share their presentations and perspectives on hot topics in their fields.
We are honored to have an interview with Prof. Eric Weiss, an excellent mentor conducting residency training in Cleveland Clinic Florida (Figure 1).
In his speech, when talking about how to assess the intellectual and technical skill of trainee, Prof. Weiss told us that there was no assessment method or tool evaluating residents about 15 to 20 years ago, until the establishment of ACGME (The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education), which is to improve health and population health by assessing and advancing the quality of resident physicians’ education through accreditation.
The training is basically based in United State. For those who want to take residency training in US, especially the foreign doctors, they have to pay more attention to the program chosen, as some general surgeries might not be trained for foreign physicians.
In Prof. Weiss’s opinion, the most important thing a resident should do is to choose a proper program according to his interest and personality, and then try to fit well with the program as well as the team.
Being an outstanding mentor in residency training, Prof. Weiss shared with us the happiness of this job was to impart the knowledge to other people, and hopefully help them to do great things as qualified doctors do, such as taking care of patients, curing diseases. As the saying goes, genius is combination of strong interest and strong fascination. Most mentors also have true interests in education training, as they enjoy it and get satisfaction out of training students.
At the end of the interview, Prof. Weiss helped us look deeply into the current status of residency training system in USA. More details, please watch the video below (Figure 2).
Interview questions
- Brief self-introduction.
- Would you like to summarize some perspectives and experience on your presentation “How do we assess the intellectual and technical skill of our trainees”?
- What’s required for a foreign doctor who wants to take US residency training?
- What’s the most important quality for a resident?
- How to be a qualified mentor?
- What do you think about the current limitation of residency training system in USA?
- Why are you so interested in residency training?
- What will you become if you were not a surgeon?
Expert introduction
Prof. Eric G. Weiss, MD, is the DIO and Chairman of Graduate Medical Education at Cleveland Clinic Florida, as well as the Residency Program Director of the Colorectal Training program, one of the largest training programs in the country. He currently serves on the Residency Review Committee for Colon and Rectal Surgery. He is also the Director of Surgical Endoscopy.
Prof. Weiss holds academic appointments as Assistant Professor of Surgery at The Cleveland Clinic Foundation Health Sciences Center of the Ohio State University and Clinical Assistant Professor of Surgery at the University of South Florida, Tampa, Florida.
He has published more than 200 manuscripts, more than 40 textbook chapters and more than 400 lectures throughout the United States and the world.
Acknowledgments
Funding: None.
Footnote
Provenance and Peer Review: This article was commissioned by the editorial office, Annals of Laparoscopic and Endoscopic Surgery. The article did not undergo external peer review.
Conflicts of Interest: Both authors have completed the ICMJE uniform disclosure form (available at http://dx.doi.org/10.21037/ales.2017.06.04). The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.
Ethical Statement: The authors are accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.
Open Access Statement: This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), which permits the non-commercial replication and distribution of the article with the strict proviso that no changes or edits are made and the original work is properly cited (including links to both the formal publication through the relevant DOI and the license). See: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.
References
- Gao S, Feng M. Interview with Prof. Eric Weiss. Asvide 2017;4:590. Available online: http://www.asvide.com/articles/1605
(Science Editors: Skylar Gao, Maxine Feng, ALES, ales@amegroups.com)
Cite this article as: Gao S, Feng M. Prof. Eric Weiss: the current status of residency training in USA. Ann Laparosc Endosc Surg 2017;2:118.
