Education

Education is a central aspect of the CAGS mission, and to ensure the educational programs CAGS develops are of the highest quality, it maintains its status as an accredited educational provider of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada. CAGS offers all members a variety of ways to achieve their Mainport CME Credits via on-line programming and in person at various accredited programs throughout the year, or the annual scientific program, known as the ‘Canadian Surgery Forum’. The Canadian Surgery Forum (CSF) is Canada’s largest surgical conference and hosts more than 1000 attendees annually in cities across Canada where there are dynamic hands on workshops, innovative didactic symposia and compelling lectures.

The Royal College, after its exhaustive report on the future of General Surgery in Canada, is moving toward trying to match the skills of the Canadian surgical workforce to the needs of the Canadian population by tailoring training through initiatives such as Enhanced Areas of Expertise, and by making the acquisition of clinical and technical competence more explicit and less subjective, through initiatives such as Competency by Design, which is set to begin rolling out in 2017. As the chief advocates of Canadian surgical patients, and the stewards of Canadian General Surgery, CAGS Members have a huge stake in these processes and are key partners in both the development and the implementation of education policy in Canada.