Training in Pediatric Minimal Access Surgery

Abstract

Moulding today’s surgeon goes beyond technical skills to build depth of knowledge, professional values and the ability to work in a multidisciplinary environment. Minimal access surgery (MAS) has integrated itself in all aspects of operating which involves comprehensive preoperative skill development. Training therein has moved outside the operating theatre to laboratories with simulators of all guises: real, virtual and combinations thereof. Designing surgical MIS skills training is a challenge. It should be based on acquisition of knowledge and operative skills of progressive complexity. While it is easier to assess a technical skill versus a nontechnical one (e.g. thought processes), objective measures that evaluate MAS skills can be quite complex.