Adult Reconstruction Fellowship Guidelines

The AAHKS Fellowship Oversight and Fellowship Education Committees developed these guidelines to help institutions interested in creating new adult reconstruction fellowship programs and provide structured educational and programmatic resources for existing fellowship programs. The AAHKS Fellowship Guidelines include suggested curriculum, conference schedules, sample evaluation forms and more resources to help all hip and knee programs acheive and maintain AAHKS Fellowship Recognition. 

Adult Reconstruction Fellowship Guidelines

The Associations provide these guidelines to fellowships that identify as Adult Reconstruction Fellowships and participate in the SF Match to improve the overall fellowship experience.

Guidelines for Adult Reconstruction Fellowship Programs:

1.  Provide fellows with a sound didactic and clinical education that is carefully planned and balanced with concerns for patient safety and fellow well-being. The learning objectives should not be compromised by excessive reliance on fellows to fulfill service obligations.

2.  Plan and monitor the relationship between residencies and fellowships to preserve educational experience of both.

3.  Provide an intellectual environment free of bias of gender, race, or religion that emphasizes acquiring the knowledge, skills, clinical judgment, and attitudes essential to the practice of the subspecialty.

4.  There should be a program director responsible for the program.

5.  There should be a sufficient number of faculty (minimum 1 full-time attending per 1 fellow).
–  The faculty should devote sufficient time to the educational program to fulfill their supervisory and teaching responsibilities.

6.  An active research component should be offered in each program.
–  These could include original research, local quality improvement projects, case studies, etc.

7.  A sufficient number of new and follow-up patients and procedures must be available to ensure adequate inpatient and outpatient experience for each fellow.
–  Minimum 250-300 primary TJA; 25 Revision TJA combination of hips & knees
–  Combine surgical experience with clinical (inpatient and outpatient) to include preoperative evaluation and follow-up of surgical patients

8.  A Program Curriculum needs to be formulated and organized in each fellowship.
–  Didactic Curriculum: regular teaching conferences (recommended weekly) should be organized on an annual schedule.
–  Fellows should participate in the structure of the curriculum and present a portion of the lectures.  This curriculum should include:
1) Rotating list of subjects with associated reading list and lectures
2) Grand Rounds
3) Morbidity and Mortality conferences
4) Journal Club

9.  The faculty should evaluate the fellows whom they supervise in a timely manner on each rotation, no less than quarterly

10.  The performance of the faculty should be evaluated to include a review of their teaching abilities, commitment to the educational program, clinical knowledge, and scholarly activities. This evaluation should include annual confidential evaluations by fellows.