Educational Opportunities

The Surgical Skills Lab teaches skills to surgical interns and general surgery residents in a low-pressure, relaxed environment where learning is the focus, not getting things done. It is directed more to the learner as opposed to the task.

Overall, junior residents — who have greater need for formal instruction — are more involved in the lab. However, residents in all years of the training program participate in the lab, and as they gain experience, the tasks become more complex.

Typical course topics during the year include:

Summer: Surgical instruments/suture basics, arterial stick/central line insertion, trauma discussion, stapling techniques, energy sources/surgical biopsy/nasogastric (NG) tubes, Endo Stitch^TM suturing, introduction to colonoscopy, operative case logging, common management problems, basics of laparoscopy, chest tube insertion, surgical airway, laparotomy incision, resuscitative thoracotomy, AC shunt, cadaver dissection, introduction to laparoscopy simulator, wound/ostomy, clinic training, IV therapy and suture selection.

Fall: Laparoscopic suturing, trauma exploratory laparotomy, hand-sewn anastomosis, open inguinal hernia repair, resuscitative thoracotomy in cadaver, cadaver dissection, laparoscopic ventral hernia repair, stoma construction, introduction to bronchoscopy simulator and laparoscopic simulator competition.

Winter: Laparoscopic cholecystectomy skills, laparoscopic Nissen fundoplication, laparoscopic splenectomy, angiography, laparoscopic colectomy in cadaver model, cadaver dissection, vascular anastomosis, colonoscopy simulator, sentinel node (SLN)/axillary dissection, mastectomy in cadaver and cadaver dissection.

Surgical Skills Labs are held on Wednesday mornings and Thursday afternoons in the Clinical Sciences Research Building, the General Surgery Residency office in the ninth floor of Wohl Hospital Building, and the Howard and Joyce Wood Simulation Center.