The Chilean Association of medical faculties (ASOFAMECH) has a regular accreditation process for the programmes and centres for the specialist training. At the end of 2002 professors of neurology from three of the five training centres that were in this process of re-accreditation were invited by ASOFAMECH to form a committee to define a series of criteria for the re-accreditation in neurology. These criteria are described in this article: the profile of a neurologist who graduates from these programmes, the characteristics of a training centre such as its organizational structure, human resources, teaching and scientific activities, number of patients seen in different types of clinics and in hospital. A general training programme is also described: basic contents, teaching methods, training activities and methods of evaluation, supervision and tutoring. Finally, we define the academic and clinical productivity that a resident should achieve during his training. We are aware that not all accredited centres fulfil all the criteria that we propose. However, the acceptance of these criteria will permit centres to implement a development strategy so that they can gradually fulfil the criteria before their next accreditation. We present this article to stimulate discussion, receive comments and validate our criteria that could eventually be used as a method of self-evaluation