482 Is Collaboration the Key to Strength in Unity for Surgical Education?

Abstract

Abstract Aim With the everchanging landscape of surgery, there is a paucity of surgical education courses focused on medical school finals examination. We examined the effectiveness of an eight-part specialty-doctor-delivered collaborative online teaching. Method The largest surgical education collaboration, SurgEazy, was organized between eight national/international organizations (NSTS, BIMA, NANSIG, ANTS, INCISION UK, WEDNS, BURST Urology). Finals-specific online teaching sessions were organized and delivered via zoom spanning eight surgical specialties. All sessions were delivered by session specialty-specific surgical trainees ranging from FY2 to ST3. 10-point Likert scales were used to measure the outcomes of sessions. Results A total of 433 students attended the eight sessions. All sessions demonstrated an increase in knowledge (8 ± 1.48), interest in pursuing surgery as a career (8 ± 2.17), commitment (8 ± 2.06), confidence (8 ± 1.60), and clarification of discrepancies in knowledge (8 ± 1.64). It also saw a decrease in concerns and worries (8 ± 1.89), and anxiety (8 ± 2.30). The majority of the students felt that the collaborative nature of the series increased its value (8 ± 1.79), their likelihood to attend (8 ± 2.13), and their awareness of all organizations (79.94%). Conclusions While online teaching has its merits of accessibility and convenience, collaborations have been shown to increase the overall merit of surgical education. Conducting such specialty-doctor-delivered focused collaborative online teaching is proven to be effective and should be considered by organizations in the future to increase the value, reach, attendance, and overall awareness of both the series and individual organizations.