Developing Interdisciplinary Models for Surgical Education (2025-2026)
As technology has advanced and surgery has become highly subspecialized, residents face pressure to master an increasingly wide range of skills without exceeding their permitted work hours. The ability to master these skills is highly dependent upon the availability of high-quality feedback on their technical performance.
The American College of Surgeons has advocated for a transition to competency-based training with increasing feedback in the form of Core Entrustable Professional Activities, which describes tasks that trainees must be able to perform independently to demonstrate mastery of required skills and knowledge. Currently, surgical educators have few validated metrics for assessing trainee skills, most relying on qualitative assessments which can vary in reliability between evaluators and require significant time and resources.
This project team worked to develop high-quality, quantitative assessment tools for surgical training that highlight opportunities for improvement in technical skills. The team created a core list of skills and assessments that could be used to evaluate competence in various areas, including open suturing and knot tying (sewing tissues and tying knots together during open surgeries), laparoscopic skills (conducting minimally invasive surgeries using small instruments and a camera), hand strength/dexterity and stress management. These assessments were developed under the supervision of surgical education and simulation staff and faculty.
Team members assessed the validity of the assessment tools, including required models and metrics. The assessments were then tested with content validation by core education faculty. Validity was determined by scoring general surgery-interested medical students, a selection of residents and faculty. Team members linked the assessments to skills curricula to help improve any detected deficiencies and track re-assessment results.
To tackle this project, the team divided into two subteams: an engineering model team and a surgical education team. Members of the engineering model team developed the technical elements of model design and generation. The surgical education team considered the teaching method part of the project, including what was needed from the models and how to assess their performance.
Timing
Summer 2025 – Summer 2026
Team Outputs
Developing Interdisciplinary Models for Surgical Education (Poster presentation at the Fortin Foundation Bass Connections Showcase, April 15, 2026)
Validated surgical training and assessment models
Validation of novel assessment
Data collection for further research grants
See related team, Developing Interdisciplinary Models for Surgical Education (2026-2027)