Accelerating the Pace of Surgical Skills Acquisition
THE DEPARTMENT OF SURGERY PREP CAMP
For the first time in the history of the Department of
Surgery, all PGY1 residents in the different Divisions of
Surgery participated in the inaugural “Prep Camp” from
July 2nd – 12th. While the concept of a preparatory
camp for surgical trainees is not necessarily a new one,
the Department of Surgery Prep Camp is unique in providing
didactic lectures focused on the chief procedural
skills required across all Divisions of Surgery, and handson
training using state-of-the-art simulation models. In
previous years, some Divisions such as Orthopaedics
and Neurosurgery held their own “Boot Camps” for
PGY1 residents. Thankfully, our Post-graduate Medical
Education Committee led by Ron Levine as Director,
and David Latter as Vice Chair of Education, strongly
recommended the development of the Prep Camp to
enable PGY1 residents to advance their skills in an expedited
fashion within the Surgical Foundations course.
The Prep Camp was organized to provide entry level
information and skills training to all PGY1 residents
in important surgical areas including the principles
of asepsis, knot tying, gowning and gloving, suturing
techniques, establishment of surgical airways, chest tube
insertion, arterial cut-downs, bladder catheterization,
and basic endoscopic skills. At the end of the two week
intensive course, all residents took part in an OSATS
course for Proficiency Assessment.
All PGY1 surgical residents were on leave during the
day from their clinical rotations to attend all aspects of
the Prep Camp. Their typical daytime duties at the hospitals
were managed by other residents, fellows, nurse
practitioners, physician assistants, and hospitalists on the
various services.
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Needless to say, the orchestration of a resource-intense
course of this magnitude requires tremendous planning
and forethought. For this, I would especially like
to thank Oleg Safir, Director, Surgical Skills Centre
(SSC) at Mount Sinai Hospital, and Lisa Satterthwaite,
Manager SSC, and all the staff at the SSC for providing
a truly remarkable program and experience to the new
residents entering the different surgical programs. All
told, there were over 55 residents who participated in the
program at the SSC.
An initiative such as the Prep Camp offers exciting
new opportunities for us to perform primary research
on how residents acquire and maintain procedural skills.
To this end, Oleg and colleagues will be longitudinally
tracking all the residents who have taken the Prep Camp
Course to determine the imprint of what they learned
during those two weeks in July on their abilities to perform
these skills at a subsequent date.
As a surgeon who learned many procedural skills
using a trial by fire method with patients in the 1980’s,
as many of us did at that time, I strongly believe that
the Department of Surgery Prep Camp is a marvelous
example of harnessing the power of simulation and skills
acquisition in an environment that will positively influence
patient safety and quality of care. I am absolutely
delighted that we can now offer this course to all new
entry level residents in the Department of Surgery.
JT Rutka
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