Teaching and assessment of surgical skills through simulation in surgical training

Background: Teaching motor skills to medical students is one of the most crucial tasks of medical teachers. Teaching and assessment of technical skills in operation theatres is difficult due to pressure on theatre time, ethical issues and medico-legal concerns. Some of these tasks are complex and difficult to be taught in real-life situations. Simulation provides a useful alternative.
Objective: Teaching and assessment of basic surgical skills to the trainees in a simulated environment outside the operating room.
Material and Methods: Two one-day suturing and knot-tying workshops were held, where the students were invited to acquire the necessary knowledge and learn skills of suturing. Fifty-two undergraduate and 25 junior residents participated in the workshops. The suturing skills of the trainees were assessed before and after the training by Objective Structured Assessment of Technical Skills (OSATS), using a checklist. In the first workshop, a pre-training and post-training questionnaire was used to assess their knowledge about sutures and their perceptions about the workshop.
Results: All trainees believed that such workshops were useful. Significant improvement was seen in the post-training checklist scores of trainees. The improvement was more marked for undergraduate medical students.
Conclusions: Teaching of basic surgical skills is both feasible and advantageous using simulation. Basic surgical skills should be taught to all medical students regardless of their career aims, at all the medical colleges.