Instituting a Surgical Skills Competition Increases Technical Performance of Surgical Clerkship Students Over Time

Leraas, Harold J.; Cox, Morgan L.; Bendersky, Victoria A.; Sprinkle, Shanna R.; Gilmore, Brian F.; Gunasingha, Rathnayaka; Tracy, Elisabeth T.; Sudan, Ranjan

doi:10.1016/j.jsurg.2017.09.007

Cited by 11 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“… 7 8 El-Beheiry et al reported on the effect of competition in a laparoscopic training curriculum and found that residents had faster task times and increased voluntary practice compared with those who were not involved in the competition. 9 This has been replicated in other studies 10 and is consistent with our results which showed improved scores for suturing and advanced laparoscopic skills. Although we could not show an improvement in the bowel and vascular anastomosis tasks, studies have shown that practicing in these tasks in a noncompetitive 4 and competitive setting 11 results in an objective improvement in technique.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 91%

Surgical Skills Olympiad: A 4-Year Experience in a General Surgery Residency Program

et al. 2021

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Background The acquisition of operative skills is the critical defining component of general surgery training. Performing simulated tasks has been shown to increase a resident's technical skills. As such, we devised the Surgical Skills Olympiad, an annual simulation-based skills competition. We examined our 4-year experience with the Olympiad at a large academic general surgery residency program. Objective This study aimed to use competition to motivate trainees to increase the time they spent practicing basic surgical skills, resulting in improved performance over time. Methods Teams were formed from members of each postgraduate year (PGY) class. Competition tasks were level specific: knot tying for PGY-1, basic laparoscopy for PGY-2, handsewn bowel anastomosis for PGY-3, vascular anastomosis for PGY-4, and advanced laparoscopy for PGY-5. Task scores over a 4-year period (2014–2017) were analyzed and a survey of participating teaching faculty was conducted. Results Ten faculty members responded to the survey, for a response rate of 63%. A total of 50% respondents felt that the caliber of surgical skills increased since the Olympiad was implemented. Ninety percent agreed that the Olympiad was beneficial for residents to assess their skills against their peers. Over 4 years, there was an improvement in scores for suturing task, advanced laparoscopy, and bowel anastomosis (p < 0.05 for all three). Conclusion A residency-wide surgical skills competition can improve resident performance in technical tasks and promote faculty engagement in resident skills training.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 91%

Surgical Skills Olympiad: A 4-Year Experience in a General Surgery Residency Program

et al. 2021

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“…There has been significant success incorporating surgical simulation, procedural skills training and even some skills competition in pre-clinical years of medical school, but these have not been done virtually and students will be coming into subinternships with very different past experiences. 18 , 19 , 20 The ability to practice skills such as suturing has been shown to improve medical student comfort in clinical situations, and we felt it a key part of a surgical rotation that students have the opportunity to improve technical skills. 21 Although the lack of in-person teaching could be perceived as a challenge, studies have shown that video feedback is effective in the development of basic surgical skills, such as suturing.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Changing the Status Quo: Developing a Virtual Sub-Internship in the Era of COVID-19

Mikhail

Margolin

Sfakianos

et al. 2021

Journal of Surgical Education

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Problem Subinternships are integral to medical education as tools for teaching and assessing fourth-year medical students. Social distancing due to COVID-19 has precluded the ability to offer in-person subinternships – negatively impacting medical education and creating uncertainty surrounding the residency match. With no precedent for the development and implementation of virtual subinternships, the Society of Academic Urologists (SAU) developed an innovative and standardized curriculum for the Virtual Subinternship in Urology (vSIU). Methods The vSIU committee's mandate was to create a standardized curriculum for teaching foundational urology and assessing student performance. Thirty-three members from 23 institutions were divided into working groups and given 3 weeks to develop 10 modules based on urologic subspecialties, Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education core competencies, technical skills training and student assessment. Working groups were encouraged to develop innovative learning approaches. The final curriculum was assembled into the “vSIU Guidebook.” Results The vSIU Guidebook contains 212 pages – 64 pages core content and 2 appendices (patient cases and evaluations). It outlines a detailed 4-week curriculum with a sufficient volume of resources to offer a completely adaptable virtual course with the same rigor as a traditional subinternship. Modules contain curated teaching resources including journal articles, lectures, surgical videos and simulated clinical scenarios. Innovative learning tools include reflective writing, mentorship guidelines, videoconference-based didactics, surgical simulcasting and virtual technical skills training. The guidebook was disseminated to program directors nationally. Next Steps The vSIU is the first virtual subinternship in any specialty to be standardized and offered nationally, and it was implemented by at least 19 urology programs. This curriculum serves as a template for other specialties looking to develop virtual programs and feedback from educators and students will allow the curriculum to evolve. As the pandemic continues to challenge our paradigm, this rapid and innovative response exemplifies that the medical community will continue to meet the needs of an ever-changing educational landscape.

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“…For several years, various systems have been used for training on the da Vinci operating system, which can be differentiated according to their orientation as follows: webbased robotic surgery programs, on-site training programs and surgical robotic training simulators. The use of the robotic surgery console for training exercises is the major benefit of this system, which enables training with the original robotic console [17][18][19][20].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cognitive training for robotic surgery: a chance to optimize surgical training? A pilot study

et al. 2020

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The rapid rise of robotic-assisted surgery (RAS) has necessitated an efficient and standardized training curriculum. Cognitive training (CT) can significantly improve skills, such as attention, working memory and problem solving, and can enhance surgical capacity and support RAS training. This pilot study was carried out between 02/2019 and 04/2019. The participants included 33 student volunteers, randomized into 3 groups: group 1 received training using the da Vinci training simulator, group 2 received computer-based cognitive training, and group 3 was the control group without training. Before (T1) and after-training (T2), performance was measured. Additionally, expert ratings and self-evaluations were collected. Subjective evaluations of performance were supplemented by evaluations based on three scales from the revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO PI-R). In total, 25 probands remained with complete data for further analyses: n = 8 (group 1), n = 7 (group 2) and n = 10 (group 3). There were no significant differences in T1 and T2 among all three groups. The average training gain of group 1 and 2 was 15.87% and 24.6%, respectively, (a restricting condition is the loss of the last training session in group 2). Analyses of semi-structured psychological interviews (SPIs) revealed no significant differences for T1, but in T2, significance occurred at ‘self-reflection’ for group 2 (F(2.22) = 8.56; p < .005). The efficacy of CT in training highly complex and difficult procedures, such as RAS, is a proven and accepted fact. Further investigation involving higher numbers of training trials (while also being cost effective) should be performed.

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Instituting a Surgical Skills Competition Increases Technical Performance of Surgical Clerkship Students Over Time

Cited by 11 publications

References 23 publications

Surgical Skills Olympiad: A 4-Year Experience in a General Surgery Residency Program

Surgical Skills Olympiad: A 4-Year Experience in a General Surgery Residency Program

Changing the Status Quo: Developing a Virtual Sub-Internship in the Era of COVID-19

Cognitive training for robotic surgery: a chance to optimize surgical training? A pilot study

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