The University of Toronto’s orthopaedic training program has as its major objective not only clinical excellence but also academic excellence. We believe that a formal research experience is an essential component of orthopaedic training, and furthers our mandate to train the academic leaders of tomorrow. In July of 2009, our program commenced a pilot competency-based education stream. This novel curriculum follows several basic principles including:

• early and frequent surgical skills sessions to maximize technical performance at an early stage of training
• frequent examination and feedback: each module utilizes knowledge-based, technical, and communication assessments to provide ongoing feedback to the residents
• individualized, flexible progress through the program

Based on the immense success of this program to date, we extended the current pilot to include all new PGY1 residents entering the program as of July, 2013.