This month's Surgical Education Rounds was on a recent paper from the University of Ottawa looking at competency in the OR, 'The Ottawa Surgical Competency Operating Room Evaluation (O-SCORE): a tool to assess surgical competence', by Wade Gofton et al (2012). We had a great discussion about how to measure competence in the OR, both from a surgical and a psychometric perspective. A key point was - is there a basic framework of competency that is common across all operations? There's lots of work to do in this area!
(Click image for PubMed link)
Team Undergrad Surgery was in attendance at the 2013 national meeting of the Canadian Undergraduate Surgery Education Committee in Ottawa in November. There was excellent representation from all across the country, and great discussion of the current hot topics in surgical education. Dr Paul Belliveau was also named as the John Provan Outstanding Canadian Surgical Educator - well done, Paul!
I was recently asked to be a visiting professor at the University of Utah, so I spent a few days in Salt Lake City visiting with the surgeons there and giving some talks. I spoke on a couple of topics:
I had a great time during my short visit, and received such a warm and generous welcome. Thanks to all of the great folks who spent time sharing their stories with me, especially Amalia Cochrane and Bill Peche and the members of the Salt Lake Surgical Society. And many thanks to Kelly and Peter for sharing breakfast with me and to Kelly for driving me over to the hospital! It was a privilege to see your M&M and resident selection processes in action, and it was great to talk to your residents and students, the surgeons of the future!