This article was migrated. The article was marked as recommended. The popularity and utility of social media in medical education have progressed dramatically during the last decade. Social media are increasingly used for educational and professional purposes and are known to be both theoretically beneficial and practically effective. We have investigated the perceptions and usage of social media by educators across multiple disciplines, roles and demographics in order to determine the present situation regarding social media as educational tools. We show that discipline and demographics have limited impact on perceptions of the value of social media. As medical educators, we consider our findings to be broadly pertinent to undergraduate medical education. Results presented here indicate that many educators at UK universities consider social media to be educationally valuable. However, this is not always directly translated into usage due to the presence of certain barriers. This finding is characterised by a disparity between the extent of positive perceptions of social media and the amount of practical usage within the context of medical education and other undergraduate disciplines. Our work has shed some light on the reasons why educators may choose not to use social media, in addition to how and why they do use it, which can provide a basis for developing strategies for training medical educators in approaches to social media in learning and teaching, and for encouraging appropriate usage of these valuable educational tools.
Objective: To compare laparoscopic and robotic training. Background: Minimally invasive surgery is the gold standard technique for many operations. Laparoscopic training has a long learning curve. Robotic solutions may shorten the training pathway.Methods: Surgical trainees (ST group) were randomised to receive 6 hours robotic or laparoscopic simulation training. They then performed cholecystectomy; continuous suture closure of a gastrostomy and interrupted suture closure of small bowel in cadaveric specimens. Medical students (MS group) had two hours robotic or laparoscopic simulation training followed by interrupted suture closure of a gastrostomy. The Global rating scale score (GRS), number of suture errors and time to complete each procedure was recorded.Results: The median GRS score for the ST group was better after robotic training (total GRS score 27.00 þ/-6, n=10) compared to laparoscopic training (18.00 þ/-5, n=10, p< 0.001). There were less errors made for the robotic group compared to the laparoscopic group for continuous suture (7.00 þ/-5 and 22.25 þ/-5 respectively, p< 0.001) and interrupted sutures (8.25 þ/-4 and 29.50 þ/-8 respectively, p< 0.001). For the MS group, the robotic group completed 8.67 interrupted sutures with 15.50 errors in 40 minutes, compared to 3.50 sutures with 40.00 errors in the laparoscopic group (p< 0.001). Fatigue and physical comfort levels were better after robotic operating compared to laparoscopic operating (p< 0.001) for both groups. Conclusions: The acquisition of surgical skills in surgical trainees and the surgically naive takes less time with a robotic compared to laparoscopic platform.
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