The Hysteroscopy Academy: Why We’re Building the Curriculum We Wish We’d Had
A Call for Subject Matter Experts to Join the Hysteroscopy Curriculum Development Committee.
Every one of us remembers our first hysteroscopy. Mine did not go smoothly. I lost the lumen, panicked quietly behind my mask, and found my way back only because an attending leaned over and said three words: follow the darkness. That single piece of guidance has stayed with me for thirty-five years, and it should not have taken a lucky assignment for me to hear it.
That is the problem the AAGL Hysteroscopy Academy is built to solve.
Right now, whether a Resident or Fellow learns hysteroscopy well depends almost entirely on who happens to be scrubbed in that day, which program they landed at, and how generous their attendings are with their time. Skill in one of the most powerful, elegant, and safe tools in our specialty is still distributed by luck. We think that is unacceptable, and we suspect most of you do too.
So, a group of us spent the last several months building something different: A full, twenty-module curriculum that takes a trainee from “what is the internal os” all the way to safe, competency-based operative hysteroscopy, including the judgment calls that no textbook chapter can teach. Anatomy, instrumentation, fluid management, complication recognition, the vaginoscopic no-touch approach, submucosal myomectomy, and yes, the module every fellow secretly needs: how to know when a case is above your pay grade and who to call.
Each module carries learning objectives, key teaching points, clinical pearls, common pitfalls, a case vignette, and self-assessment questions, paired with simulation where it matters most. It is not a textbook. It is scaffolding, meant to sit beside real supervised experience in the OR and the sim lab, not replace it.
Why should 6,000-plus of you, scattered across the globe, care about a training program aimed at residents and fellows? Because every one of those trainees is going to be operating on someone’s mother, someone’s sister, someone’s chance at a future pregnancy. The woman at the end of the speculum does not care how her surgeon learned. She cares that her surgeon knows what they’re doing. This Academy is how we make sure that is true regardless of geography, program size, or the luck of the call schedule.
Here is the part where I ask something of you.
A curriculum this ambitious cannot be written by a committee of two. And let me be clear about who we’re looking for, because it is not just the names you already know from the podium. Yes, we want the surgeons whose papers your fellows are citing, but we also want just as much the quieter expert down the hall at your own institution who has had a career perfecting one skill and never had a reason to write it down. You do not need a national reputation to belong on this committee. You need passion, real clinical expertise, and a willingness to show up.
A few of the seats are already filled. Dr. Tony Carugno, Dr. Alka Kumar, Dr. Ted Anderson, and I are building this alongside you, and we want you next to us.
We are recruiting volunteer subject-matter experts for the Hysteroscopy Curriculum Development Committee now. This is not a ceremonial appointment. You will shape what an entire generation of gynecologic surgeons learns as fundamental. Your name will be on work that outlives your own case log. You will be recognized publicly at the AAGL Global Congress for your contribution. And, selfishly, you will get to argue with a room full of people who care as much about the internal os as you do, which is rarer and more fun than it sounds.
The commitment of your participation is approximately 20 hours and will include several planning meetings by zoom. Some who volunteer will be assigned a topic to record a presentation that will be included in the Hysteroscopy Curriculum. While we have already developed a solid framework, it is our goal to have the complete outline of our curriculum and topics assigned to subject matter experts by the end of the year. Completion of each curriculum module presentation, including PowerPoint slide decks and subsequent recording, will be completed in the first quarter of 2027.
We are especially looking for voices in these areas, though this list is a starting point, not a ceiling:
● Fluid management and complication prevention — someone ready to own that module
● Office-based / vaginoscopic hysteroscopy — the no-touch, patient-experience side of our field
● Hysteroscopic myomectomy and complex operative technique
● Simulation and competency-based assessment — turning “see one, do one” into something measurable
● Global and low-resource settings — adapting this curriculum where equipment and training access differ
If your expertise isn’t on that list, apply anyway. We built this list from what we know we’re missing, not from what we’re willing to accept.
“I didn’t become a surgeon to keep what I know to myself. Every trainee who fumbles through their first hysteroscopy because nobody explained it well is a failure that belonged to us, not them. This curriculum is my chance to fix that scale. I’d rather do it with a room full of people who care as much as I do than alone.” — Linda D. Bradley, MD
If any part of you has ever thought “I wish someone had taught me that properly the first time,” this is your chance to be that someone for the next generation.
Interested in joining the Curriculum Development Committee? Complete the brief committee application by October 1, 2026.
Not ready to commit to the full committee but still want in? Email me directly at bradlel@ccf.org and tell me your area of interest. We’ll keep you looped in as the Academy grows, no application required.
Questions? Reach out to me directly at bradlel@ccf.org. I read every one.
We built this curriculum because the current system asks trainees to learn one of the safest, most transformative procedures in gynecology the hardest way possible: by accident, one case at a time. Let’s give them something better. Let’s give them us.
