Central Surgical AssociationDo preclinical background and clerkship experiences impact skills performance in an accelerated internship preparation course for senior medical students?
Section snippets
Methods
A dedicated skills course entitled “Accelerated Skills Preparation for Surgical Internship” for 4th-year medical students matching to a surgical specialty was conducted from 2006 through 2009. The course was given as 7 once-weekly sessions lasting approximately 3 hours, as previously described.7 Each session consisted of a short didactic presentation followed by hands-on basic skills instruction and practice. The curriculum was designed to address perceived needs for students entering surgical
Results
Student demographics are shown in Table II. Sixty-five 4th-year medical students were enrolled (38 male, 27 female). Most common specialties were general surgery (n = 22) and orthopedics (n = 16). Thirty-five students were elite-level musicians (n = 16) or athletes (n = 19) and 8 were regular (several times/week) videogamers.
Objective assessment of skills performance showed a significant improvement in suturing and knot-tying task times from pre- to postcourse for all 5 tasks (Table III). The
Discussion
Despite pleas for more structure and organization,10, 11 the 4th year of medical school remains largely unstructured so that medical students can pursue electives in their specialties of interest.12 Although every medical school curriculum includes a core surgical block in the 3rd year, the skills exposure and skills set of students after their core clinical clerkships is often limited.13 The opportunity to perform procedures and the resultant hands-on experience acquired is heavily dependent
References (24)
- et al.
The new ACS/APDS skills curriculum: moving the learning curve out of the operating room
J Gastrointest Surg
(2008) - et al.
Surgery interns' experience with surgical procedures as medical students
Am J Surg
(1990) - et al.
A senior elective designed to prepare medical students for surgical residency
Amer J Surg
(2004) - et al.
Senior medical student “boot camp” can result in increased self-confidence before starting surgery internships
Curr Surg
(2006) - et al.
A surgical skills elective can improve student confidence prior to internship
J Surg Res
(2006) - et al.
Preparing medical students to enter surgery residencies
Am J Surg
(2010) - et al.
Development of a comprehensive program of education and assessment of the basic fundamentals of laparoscopic surgery
Surgery
(2004) Presidential address: surgical education—addressing the challenges of change
Surgery
(1996)Problems with the fourth-year curriculum of students entering surgical residencies
Am J Surg
(1995)Do you know your students' basic skills exposure?
Am J Surg
(2003)
Cited by (0)
Support for this course by a grant from the Washington University School of Medicine Innovations in Medical Student Education Program, and in part by education grant and equipment support from Ethicon Endosurgery, Ethicon Inc., Stryker Endoscopy, and Karl Storz Endoscopy. Dr Brunt has received honoraria for speaking/teaching from Ethicon Endosurgery and consulting from Stryker Endoscopy that are unrelated to the content of this article.