title: Orthopedic boot camp: examining the effectiveness of an intensive surgical skills course.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Changes in health care across the globe have had a profound impact on the number of hands-on surgical training opportunities that are available to residents. In the current study, we examine whether an intensive laboratory-based skills course at the start of orthopedic surgical training is an effective mechanism for teaching core technical skills.
  
  
  METHODS
  First-year residents were divided into 3 groups (on-service, n = 8; off-service, n = 8; and a new, competency-based program that has as a major element of the curriculum a focused, intensive skills laboratory-based experience, n = 6). Baseline surgical skills were assessed prior to commencing training. The intensive skills laboratory group was then given an intensive surgical skills course, whereas the other 2 groups embarked on traditional residency. After the surgical skills course, all the residents were assessed for core surgical skills using an objective structured assessment of technical skills (OSATS) procedure.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Pretraining scores revealed no differences between the groups of residents using both checklist (F[2,19] = 0.852, P = .442) and global rating scores (F[2,19] = 0.704, P = .507). Post-training scores revealed a significant difference, with residents from the intensive skills laboratory group performing better on both the checklists (on-service = 78.9, off-service = 78.6, intensive skills laboratory = 92.3; F[2,19] = 6.914, P < .01) and global rating scores (on-service = 3.4, off-service = 3.4, intensive skills laboratory = 4.3; F[2,19] = 5.722, P < .01), than the other groups who showed no differences between them.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The intensive skills course used in this study was highly effective at teaching and developing targeted surgical skills in first-year orthopedic residents. We predict that allowing residents to acquire key technical skills at the start of their training will enhance learning opportunities at later stages of training.
authors.affiliation: Department of Surgery, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. ranil.sonnadara@utoronto.ca
authors.forename: Ranil R
authors.initials: RR
authors.lastname: Sonnadara
authors.forename: Aaron
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Van Vliet
authors.forename: Oleg
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Safir
authors.forename: Benjamin
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Alman
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Ferguson
authors.forename: William
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Kraemer
authors.forename: Richard
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Reznick
mesh_terms: D002170:Canada; D002983:Clinical Competence; D004521:Educational Measurement; D006801:Humans; D007396:Internship and Residency; D009985:Orthopedics / Q000193:education*; D013663:Teaching / Q000379:methods