Essential Skills for Aspiring Surgeons

Surgeon treats patients with complex blood or circulatory diseases and illnesses. This can be done through open surgery or minimally invasive endovascular procedures such as angioplasty.

Medical students who plan to specialize in surgery have cited the desire to help people as one of their main motivations for choosing this career path. They often work with interprofessional teams including other doctors and nurses.

Surgeons use their medical knowledge and surgical skills to perform operations that can save lives or improve a patient’s quality of life. Surgical procedures can be either emergency or elective, and they may be performed on humans or non-humans, such as animals (veterinary surgery). Surgeons also treat patients with conditions that cannot be treated through any other means except surgery.

Surgeons must have the ability to evaluate and plan for patients’ surgical needs, including providing them with information about their options for both surgical and non-surgical treatment. This involves determining whether the patient is a candidate for surgery, performing an examination to assess the patient’s condition and obtaining informed consent from the patient. The surgeon must be able to explain the risks and benefits of each option and help the patient make an informed decision.

Following the patient’s surgery, surgeons must be able to monitor and manage postoperative complications. These can include infections, wound problems and blood loss, and they can affect the patient’s recovery time and quality of life. Surgical complications are undesirable events that can cause harm to the patient, prolong hospital stay and increase costs. They may also be associated with psychological stress and even death.

A skilled surgeon should be able to identify the risk factors for these complications and apply appropriate prevention strategies. These include optimising the patient’s preoperative state, conducting careful surgery to reduce operative time and intraoperative blood loss, and using appropriate infection control measures in managing contaminated surgical sites.

Surgeons should continually strive to improve their technical skills and expand their knowledge of the human body. They should also keep abreast of developments in other areas of medicine to ensure that they are able to offer their patients multidisciplinary diagnosis and treatment.

After completing medical school, surgeons undergo a surgical residency to gain hands-on experience with various techniques and specialties. This usually lasts five years and can be extremely challenging. During this period, surgeons are supervised by experienced surgeons who teach them the nuances of their craft. The surgeons also learn how to handle different types of cases, from the simplest to the most complicated.

Surgical Skills

Surgeons perform a wide range of operations, from routine procedures to emergency cases. In the operating theatre, surgeons liaise with nursing staff and other healthcare professionals to ensure patients receive the right care at the correct time. They also have to undertake tests and arrange x-rays and scans before an operation, as well as meeting with patients, families and carers to explain what will happen. In addition, they often spend a large amount of time writing to other surgeons, GPs and patients and arranging rotas and paperwork to support trainee surgeons.

Surgeons need to have excellent surgical skills and be able to learn from their mistakes. A good understanding of anatomy is essential as are leadership and management skills. The ability to adapt to changing health service requirements is also important, and a willingness to stay up to date with medical developments is critical. Surgeons must be able to work as part of a multi-disciplinary team and be able to deal with the emotional stress and demands of their job.

Although high-quality basic surgical skill (BSS) courses are widely available, surgical skills remain poor among junior doctors, and interest in surgery as a career remains low. A novel decentralized, peer-led BSS program was implemented in the hospital system and found to improve confidence in all surgical skills taught, as well as increase student well-being and value added by training.

Surgical skills are associated with clinical outcomes and poor technical skills are responsible for 25% of variation in patient outcomes2. However, current assessment of surgical skill is a manual process that is time consuming and prone to subjective interpretation. A three-stage machine learning approach was developed to automate surgical skill assessment in laparoscopic cholecystectomy videos: first, a convolutional neural network detects instrument localizations in video footage; second, motion features are extracted from the detected instruments; and third, a linear regression model is trained to predict the quality of the surgeon’s performance.

Surgical skills laboratories are becoming an increasingly popular venue for technical training of surgical residents worldwide. While much research has been conducted into structured teaching, learning and assessment of surgical skills in this environment, there is limited knowledge about the optimal mode of delivery of this education. This study uses the Kolb learning style inventory to understand how various factors, such as schedule of practice and the frequency and type of feedback, influence the acquisition of surgical skills in a skills laboratory setting.

Surgical Residencies

A surgical residency is a period of advanced medical training for Doctors of Medicine (MD) and Doctors of Osteopathy (DO) who wish to specialize in surgery. It is a component of the Graduate Medical Education (GME) system and lasts between 5 and 7 years. During their surgical residency, surgeons are taught by senior, board-certified surgeons and are provided with the clinical experiences and educational opportunities necessary to ensure professional development.

During their first year, residents learn the fundamentals of pre-operative, operative and post-operative care for patients in the hospital and clinic settings. They also develop the ability to critically assess a patient and determine their specific needs in terms of pre-operative, operative and post-operative management. They are encouraged to participate in basic science research during this time as well, which can later strengthen their applications for fellowships upon completion of their surgical residency.

For their PGY-2 year, residents rotate through general surgical services as well as a variety of subspecialty service rotations including urology, gynecology, pediatric surgery, plastic surgery, minimally invasive and bariatric surgery, cardiac surgery, transplantation and trauma/burns. They also gain experience in the surgical intensive care unit at University Hospital.

Residents are supervised by both faculty attendings and senior residents on every case they encounter. The level of supervision is based on the skill and ability of each individual resident, with junior residents being directed more closely than senior residents. The chain of command also emphasizes graded authority – the attending physician is ultimately responsible for a patient’s care and delegates responsibilities to the resident accordingly.

During their PGY-3 and PGY-5 years, general surgery residents will be assigned to a chief resident position where they are expected to take a leadership role in the operating room. They are expected to assist in the operation, attend rounds and other outpatient clinics, lead in-training residents, conduct research and attend conferences. In addition, they are required to complete a month-long international surgical rotation during their PGY-3 and PGY-5. These rotations are designed to give residents the opportunity to provide surgical care to underdeveloped communities and to share their knowledge with local physicians.

Surgical Specialties

A surgeon has a wide range of options to choose from when deciding on what type of specialist he or she will become. Physicians with surgical specialties are incredibly talented and make a significant impact on the lives of their patients each day. However, choosing the right specialty requires careful consideration of a number of factors, including career aspirations, money goals and medical interests.

The most common and well-known surgical specialty is general surgery, which consists of treating diseases related to the abdomen, endocrine system and alimentary tract. General surgeons typically don’t require a fellowship and can begin work after their surgical residency is complete.

A general surgeon specializes in a large number of procedures, addressing issues like appendicitis, cholecystitis and pancreatitis, hernia repair, bowel obstruction and a myriad of cancers. The ACS reports that these specialists also address some conditions associated with obesity, such as stomach stapling and gastric bypass procedures.

Vascular surgery focuses on the blood vessels, veins and arteries throughout the body. Physicians in this field have the ability to treat a number of vascular issues, such as venous insufficiency and varicosities, which can often be difficult to diagnose without extensive testing.

Neurosurgery is a broad discipline that focuses on the brain, central nervous system and spinal cord. Physicians who choose to focus on this field have the option to specialize in paediatric neurosurgery, functional neurosurgery, skull-base surgery or spinal surgery.

Ophthalmology focuses on the eye and visual system. This field includes the diagnosis and treatment of a variety of conditions, including amblyopia (“lazy eye”), corneal dystrophies, cataracts, glaucoma, macular degeneration and retinal detachment.

Orthopedic surgery focuses on the bones, joints and muscles of the body. This field addresses a number of conditions, such as osteoarthritis and sports injuries, according to the ACS. Plastic surgery focuses on restoring form and function to the body following injury or illness. A physician in this field may be called upon to perform cosmetic procedures, such as nose reshaping and breast augmentation. He or she may also be required to conduct reconstructive surgery for patients who have suffered burns, trauma or scarring.