[Residency in plastic surgery: comparison between the French and the Canadian Royal College programs].

[BACKGROUND] Learning plastic surgery in Montreal is different from learning plastic surgery in a French university. In Canada, all residency programs are accredited by a national structure: the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons. We tried to highlight the differences that exist between the French and a North American academic system.

[MATERIAL AND METHOD] With the different rules and law that governs academic education in both countries, we analyzed the following elements: the residency selection, the program of plastic surgery (content and organisation), the system of evaluation and the diplomas.

[RESULT] The training of a Canadian plastic surgeon is very controlled. The recommendations of the Royal College guarantee to the resident who enters a program to have the means to acquire a complete training in quantity and in quality. On the four studied items, none is completely similar between both countries. Each having advantages and inconveniences as, for example, the selection of residency by interview or by the classifying national exam.

[CONCLUSION] Actually, few French plastic surgery programs could satisfy the requirements of the Royal College on several points, however without failing the training of French plastic surgeons. Nevertheless, we could be inspired by several elements (rotation in private practice,grouping together several academic hospitals. . .) to improve our system of training.