The “virtual OR:” creation of a surgical video-based gynaecologic surgery teaching session to improve medical student orientation and supplement surgical learning during COVID-19

Implication Statement The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in changes to clinical clerkship delivery including decreased surgical exposure. The Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at Dalhousie University developed a novel, resident-led learning experience using a curated presentation of operative footage. This session aimed to improve medical students’ orientation to the operative environment and supplement teaching on pelvic anatomy and gynaecologic surgery in response to decreased exposure during the COVID-19 pandemic. Medical students perceived this session as valuable and felt it improved their preparedness for the operating room. This initiative has the potential to improve medical student orientation to the operative environment.

THE MOST REALISTIC SURGICAL SIMULATION MODEL TO GAIN SKILLS IN LAPAROSCOPIC SURGERY IS THE CADAVERIC MODEL THIEL, ACCORDING TO OPINIONS OF DIFFERENT SPECIALIST SURGEONS

INTRODUCTION Laparoscopic procedures are still a challenge for the surgeon residents and young surgeon physicians. Different learning systems have been used without achieving a realism faithful to the lived in the operation room. All existing surgical simulation systems should be compared, with the aim of identifying the most realistic of them, for improving the surgical learning. MATERIAL AND METHODS An 18-item survey was sent to different specialized surgeons (general surgeons, gynecologists and urologists) who participated in international postgraduate laparoscopic surgery courses on cadavers embalmed by Thiel method. Participants were asked to the differences and improving skills in each surgical procedure, about the different surgical simulation models that the participants had already used. Surgeons were asked if they would recommend doing it during residency to improve their confidence in the operating room. RESULTS Attendees (n = 104) had a response rate of 92% (96 replies). The 91.8% surgeons recognized that Thiel model was more realistic than others simulation methods. The 97.9 % of respondents believed that had improved their surgical skills. Globally, 96.9% (93) of the participants surveyed recommended the conducting of these courses with Thiel cadavers to different colleagues of other specialties as a reliable simulation measure during the residency period. CONCLUSIONS Participants in the laparoscopic surgery course on the cadaver Thiel recognized that this is more realistic surgical simulation model than conventional models, one of the best ways to gain confidence and improve laparoscopic skills in operation room for inexperienced surgeons.

Critical fail concepts in surgery: highlighting the “must-know” concepts

As the vast majority of medical students do not pursue further postgraduate surgical education, we suggest that failing to achieve certain learning objectives (LOs) has greater potential consequences than others. We developed a tiered LO architecture that classifies a high-priority subset of "critical fail" LOs within the current surgical learning objectives for medical students. Followup of student performance on written examinations revealed an improvement in applying critical fail concepts without sacrificing performance on other LOs. Here we describe how we modified our declared curriculum to incorporate these changes.