Global Spine Diploma Program Modules

Join the spine surgery elite. Build competence. Boost your career.

Online • 5 modules

The GSD Program includes five 8-week modules covering all major areas of modern spine care—trauma, cervical degeneration, lumbar degeneration, adult and pediatric deformity, tumor and infection.

Each module is grounded in the trusted AO Spine Curriculum, ensuring globally consistent, expert-validated content. It addresses core competencies needed for the surgical management of spinal disorders: patient assessment and diagnoses, evidence-based treatment planning, patient communication and shared decision-making, multidisciplinary collaboration, choosing and performing appropriate surgical procedures, complication prevention and management.

Format of the modules
Module content opens week-by-week. It includes journal articles, book chapters, teaching videos, and other learning assets for self-directed learning. Participants are asked to contribute to weekly faculty-moderated discussion forums and attend live case discussions held online.

Assessment
Assessment tasks include brief weekly quizzes and discussion forum contributions.

Interested in focused learning?

Some individual modules are also available for surgeons seeking focused training in a specific area of spine care.

Trauma (August–October 2026)

Deformity (August–October 2026)

Or enroll in the 12-month training program

Explore the modules

Adult deformity—assessment and treatment planning
Surgical procedures—choosing the approach: anterior, posterior, or both
Surgical procedures—augmentation and proximal junctional fixation
Outcomes and complications
Paediatric deformity—assessment and treatment planning
Surgical procedures—idiopathic scoliosis
Spondylolisthesis
Complications and outcomes

Clinical and radiological assessment
Non-operative management
Cervical radiculopathy
Degenerative cervical myelopathy
Anterior surgery for DCM
Posterior surgery for DCM
Cervical rheumatoid disease
Outcomes and complications

Clinical and radiological assessment
Biopsychosocial model of pain
Non-operative treatment
Lumbar disc herniation
Degenerative spondylolisthesis
Lumbar stenosis
Lumbar fusion—open and MISS
Outcomes and complications

Acute spinal trauma—initial management
Radiological assessment and injury classification systems
Upper cervical injuries
Lower cervical injuries
Thoracolumbar injuries
Osteoporotic and ankylotic fractures
Sacral and spinopelvic injuries
Outcomes and complications

Assessment of the patient with a spinal tumor
Treatment planning
Surgical procedures—primary
Surgical procedures—metastatic
Assessing the patient with spinal infection
Postoperative infection
Pyogenic spondylodiscitis
Spinal tuberculosis

The Global Spine Diploma Program modules are an integral part of the AO Spine Competency-Based curriculum courses.

The AO Spine Principles

The four AO Spine Principles that create the foundation for proper spinal patient management lie at the core of the design and delivery of the curriculum.