Abstract
Surgery is known to be a craft profession requiring individuals with specific innate aptitude for manipulative skills, and visuospatial and psychomotor abilities. The present-day selection process of surgical trainees does not include aptitude testing for the psychomotor and manual manipulative skills of candidates for required abilities. We aimed to scrutinize the significance of innate aptitudes in surgical practice and impact of training on skills by systematically reviewing their significance on the surgical task performance. A systematic review was performed in compliance with PRISMA guidelines. An initial search was carried out on PubMed/Medline for English language articles published over 20 years from January 2001 to January 2021. Search strategy and terms to be used included ‘aptitude for surgery’, ‘innate aptitude and surgical skills, ‘manipulative abilities and surgery’, and ‘psychomotor skills and surgery’. MERSQI score was applied to assess the quality of quantitatively researched citations. The results of the present searches provided a total of 1142 studies. Twenty-one studies met the inclusion criteria out of which six citations reached high quality and rejected our three null hypothesis. Consequently, the result specified that all medical students cannot reach proficiency in skills necessary for pursuing a career in surgery; moreover, playing video games and/or musical instruments does not promote skills for surgery, and finally, there may be a valid test with predictive value for novices aspiring for a surgical career. MERSQI mean score was 11.07 (SD = 0.98; range 9.25–12.75). The significant findings indicated that medical students with low innate aptitude cannot reach skills necessary for a competent career in surgery. Training does not compensate for pictorial-skill deficiency, and a skill is needed in laparoscopy. Video-gaming and musical instrument playing did not significantly promote aptitude for microsurgery. The space-relation test has predictive value for a good laparoscopic surgical virtual-reality performance. The selection process for candidates suitable for a career in surgery requests performance in a simulated surgical environment.
Highlights
The selection of surgical trainees has mainly been based on academic achievements and subjective assessments obtained from non-structured interviews [1, 2]
We reviewed innate aptitude along with other non-surgical skills, for example, playing video games or musical instruments, while skills in these non-domainspecific areas have been thought to facilitate the learning of aptitudes needed for surgical task performance
Search items were studied from the nature of the article, date of publication, forum of publication, aim and main findings in relation to the effect of innate aptitude on the surgical performance, as well as quality scores in agreement with the Medical Education Research Study Quality Instrument (MERSQI) protocol
Summary
The selection of surgical trainees has mainly been based on academic achievements and subjective assessments obtained from non-structured interviews [1, 2]. While surgery is known to be a craft profession requiring individuals with specific innate aptitude for manipulative skills, the present-day selection process of surgical trainees in most countries does not include aptitude testing for the visuospatial, psychomotor, and manual manipulative skills of candidates. We focused on innate aptitudes in the selection process of suitable candidates for surgery and we defined ‘innate aptitude’ as an ‘inborn or congenital skill, talent, or inclination to perform and complete a task with or without training. We aimed to scrutinize the significance of innate aptitude in surgical practice and training by systematically reviewing its significance on the surgical task performance. We reviewed innate aptitude along with other non-surgical skills, for example, playing video games or musical instruments, while skills in these non-domainspecific areas have been thought to facilitate the learning of aptitudes needed for surgical task performance. The predictors for innate aptitude for surgical skills were reviewed
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