The Core Curriculum comprises 289 Core Competencies, which have been arranged into ESSKA’s six Specialist Areas: 

• Knee • Shoulder • Foot & Ankle • Hip • Elbow & Forearm • Sport Medicine 

For convenience, each Core Competency is defined in terms of a Condition and a related Procedure. 

But the Procedure itself — being able to do it — is only part of the process. 

Equally important are the preceding steps: the history-taking, the consideration of co-morbidities and patient-context, the clinical-examination and diagnoses, a consideration of alternatives, based upon best evidence, and surgical planning. 

Each Core Competency also assumes adequate facilities, resources and staff for the procedure itself and for the management of common-complications, as well as training. 

Each Core Competency has been given a unique identifier, composed of the shortened Specialist Area name (Shoulder-, Elbow-, Hip-, Knee-, Ankle- or Sport-) and the ID from the tables below. For instance, Elbow-EA3 is the third in Elbow & Forearm.