Simulation Training in Surgery

Abstract

Surgical training consists of developing cognitive, clinical, and technical skills. Current surgical training in the USA is based on the German-style residency training system introduced by Sir William Halsted at Johns Hopkins Hospital in 1889, with an emphasis on graded responsibility, in which the surgical technical skills in the resident programs were traditionally acquired through mentoring. 1 However, recent advances in minimally invasive surgical technology, educational and motor skill learning theory, and mounting pressures in the clinical environment have raised questions about the reliance on this approach to teaching technical skills in the young generation of surgeons. Therefore, replication of surgical situations through biological models, such as animals and human cadavers, and more recently, the development of nonbiological simulators housed in training laboratories or centers, have been developed. 2 Development of Simulation Training in Surgery