The Trainee to Surgeon Continuum

Abstract

This special issues is dedicated to the 22nd Sabah State Surgical Clinical Conference which was conducted on the 11- 14 March 2020, held at Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Kota Kinabalu Sabah, Malaysia. The theme of this conference was “The Trainee to Surgeon Continuum: Connecting the Dots”. Although the main aim of this conference is dedicated to surgical trainees and medical officers aspiring a career in surgery, conference for the surgical paramedics were also run concurrently. This is a commendable approach as by having a strong, dedicated and fully trained surgical teams are obviously essential in all areas of surgical department. Teamwork is essential in surgery. A surgeon alone cannot adequately fulfill his daily tasks, neither in the operating theater nor on the surgical ward. Good teamwork is linked to improved patient outcomes, better medical staff satisfaction and a reduced incidence of burnouts. Good teamwork is linked to improve patient outcomes due to lesser adverse events, good coordination and cost saving. Improvement of teamwork ability in operating theaters leads to reduced technical errors and lower perioperative mortality. This conference has created a history of its own as this is the first conference conducted with “new-normal” during the COVID19 era with strict Standard Operation Procedure (SOP) in-placed during the whole proceeding of the conference. The organizer has invited many prominent national and local prominent speakers and academics in the field of surgery to share their wealth of knowledge and experience with the participants. Many activities and programs were available in this conference including “hands on training”, poster and paper presentation. The conference had attracted more than 200 local and national participants. More than 30 papers were presented as oral and poster presentations. In this special issues only 10 papers have been selected to be published. Special briefing on General Surgical Training in Malaysia, Masters, MedEX, MRCS, JSCFE FRCS and NSR by the President of the College of Surgeons, Academy of Medicine of Malaysia (CSAMM Council). Surgery is a major medical specialty that uses manual techniques to treat a pathological condition in patients. It is a long and difficult journey to become a surgeon, fraught with much stress and many sacrifices and thus is becoming less popular choice for this generation of junior doctors. The conference will definitely be able to stimulate more interest in Surgery.