Mara Snyder, General Surgery Residency Program Manager, shares an update on our pilot of a collaborative surgical skills curriculum
Surgical resident hour limitations have necessitated operative skill training outside of the OR. Low-cost box trainers and virtual reality systems are useful for resident training; however, they do not replace surgical skill wet-labs, which produce essential learning outcomes in realistic exercise. Unfortunately, materials and human resource requirements make wet-labs utilizing biologic samples costly.
To resolve this problem, our General Surgery Residency program initiated a relationship with the University of Wisconsin School of Veterinary Medicine’s Small Animal Surgery Residency program to pilot a cost-effective, interdisciplinary, surgical skills curriculum.A novel interdisciplinary surgical skills curriculum was implemented: PGY2 general surgery residents and veterinary surgery residents participated in monthly joint surgical skills practice sessions. To date, eight general surgery residents and five veterinary surgery residents have each participated in three joint-skills sessions, taught by both general surgery and veterinary surgery faculty. An iterative review of qualitative data suggests that skill sessions reinforce knowledge and reflexivity. Participants also indicate that the collaborative skills sessions are an enjoyable and valuable learning activity.