Two realities with a future: Quality teaching and research quality teaching

Quality teaching. The Health Ministry's voluntary final examination

This issue of the Journal includes an article on education written by the members of the National Specialty Commission (NSC), concurrently renowned members of the Spanish Society of Orthopaedic Surgery and Traumatology (SECOT is the Spanish acronym).¹ They present the results of the latest session of the voluntary final examination, which the Ministry of Health, Social Services and Equality holds for the resident physicians recently graduated from their period of specialised training. The number of colleagues presented duplicated that of the prior session by a wide margin. This test is recognised, valued and rewarded by doctors in other specialties, by managers and by the Administration. It is already one of the most valuable legacies that the Spanish Orthopaedic Surgery and Traumatology possesses, because it assesses how we transmit knowledge to the future protagonists of our specialty in Spain, thanks to the altruism of the NSC and SECOT members and – above all – of the young colleagues who present themselves to be assessed.

The SECOT, with the support of its corporate bodies and the associates in general, holds many annual scientific activities with the objective of achieving success on the examination; this implicitly involves the transmission of knowledge with a quality comparable to that of the best Western societies, and constitutes a praiseworthy institutional collaboration with NSC and an exemplary social commitment.

The article analysis, where several variables are stratified, demonstrates how autonomous societies can participate in accurately transmitting information about the examination and in preparing their young doctors to pass the test, as an objective representation of their community's potential. Nonetheless, the extent of this crucial territorial mission of knowledge management has been interpreted, as is seen, in different ways: each voluntarily selects their role in the national ranking. Even greater advances would be possible if, in the future, NSC would publish the hierarchy by hospital and the Administration would weigh having passed the test as a requisite for quality. This would focus the candidates in choosing a hospital centre at which they want to be trained, and would force the heads of the academic units to present a competitive offer that would guarantee success on the examination. The economic crisis, with staffing cutbacks and probable consequent saturation of specialists, would undoubtedly regulate the offer and demand for quality criteria.

The Journal maintains its vocation of supporting rigorous publications on training,^1–10 continuing the independent task of making room for the different points of view that the members of our scientific community have collectively on transmitting knowledge.

Quality research. The internationalisation of Spanish Orthopaedic Surgery

Over the last few years, Spanish Orthopaedic Surgery has achieved a heretofore unknown maturity and international prestige. The hospital development initiated many years ago, the command of English by the younger generations and the scientific and social developments of the latest decades (joining international institutions and eluding the periods of economic crisis) have exported the original thinking that orthopaedic surgeons in Spain have produced. To recognise this, it is only necessary to acknowledge that, in the last EFFORT Congress in Copenhagen, the Spanish contributions were again among the most numerous, while the Spanish orthopaedic surgeons hold high-ranking positions in this organisation (although less than the quota that would correspond to them).

Bibliometric analysis of ranking international journals has also shown greater Spanish presence, both as authors and as members of the editorial boards on a great many journals. Among other variables, the policy of alliances between basic and clinical researchers in the last decade or so has made this impact possible; this internationalisation – the concept around which even the most prestigious university campuses revolve – has been possible thanks to the philanthropic efforts of a group of surgeons. Then again, they have indicated that this “official policy”, far from receiving recognition from public administrations, whoever is currently governing, has been the focus of cutbacks that call the so loudly vaunted change in the national productive model into question. It is evident that there is still margin for improvement in rationalising public spending, a comfortable margin before cutting back on precisely the development of science.

The Journal, nonetheless, initiates the first issue of the year, in which it wishes to cap this enormous effort with its indexing in the Journal Citation Report, assembling significant basic research work that has clinical projection.