ABC of Surgical Teaching: Time to Consider a Global Blueprint for Holistic Education

Abstract

Background

Educating and equipping students and trainees into clinicians capable of meeting healthcare demands and service provision needs is essential. Unprecedented events like COVID-19 pandemic, highlight urgent need for reformation of training to ensure high quality education is maintained. To this end, we describe an innovative and globally adaptable blueprint for establishing a surgical curriculum, aiming to optimize preparation of future surgeons.

Methods

We used a structured protocol to synthesize evidence from previous systematic reviews focused on surgical education alongside a series of focused original educational studies. This approach allowed incorporation of prospectively applied novel ideas into the existing landscape of published evidence. All material used for this proof of concept derives from the outputs of a dedicated research network for surgical education (eMERG).

Results

We propose the foundation blueprint framework called “Omnigon iG4” as a globally applicable model. It allows adaptation to individual local educational environments for designing, appraising and/or refining surgical curricula. We also describe the “Omnigon iG4 Hexagon Pragmatic Model,” a novel perspective model which assesses the performance of our blueprint in a multi-layer fashion. This “Hexagon” model is the first to introduce pragmatic outcomes in curricula performance assessment.

Conclusions

This proof of concept, “Omnigon iG4,” proposes an adaptable version of a curriculum blueprint. The framework allows educators to establish a surgical curriculum with the ability to map out competencies, permitting full control over their intended learning outcomes. This can form the basis for developing globally adaptable multifaceted Simulation-Based learning (SBL) courses or even surgical curricula for undergraduates.

Keywords:

• Surgical education
• global blueprint
• curricula design
• innovation in education

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest

Informed consent

No need for informed consent, as this study did not involve individual participants

Consent for publication

For this type of study consent for publication is not required

Author contribution

Michail Sideris (MS) conceived the iG4 and the “iG4 Omnigon” models, along with the “Hexagon Pragmatic Performance Model.” MS and Apostolos Papalois (AP) co-founders and leads of the ESMSC course which was the platform for development of the “iG4 Omnigon.” MS drafted the manuscript; parts of the manuscript were rewritten and edited by John Gerrard Hanrahan (JGH) and Elif Iliria Emin (EIE). EIE has conceptualized the mind map (Figures 1–4) of the manuscript. JH and EIE are equal contributors as second authors. Rebecca Mallick (RM) and Funlayo Odejinmi (FO) offered constructive feedback and contributed in editing the manuscript. Marios Nicolaides (MN) contributed in editing of the manuscript and participation in several research projects needed to complete this paper. George Velmahos (GV), Thanos Athanasiou (TA), AP and Vassilios Papalois (VP) are equal contributors as senior authors with substantive input in designing and conducting several studies to design this blueprint. GV, TA, VP, and AP have edited the manuscript in its final version. All authors have approved the final version of the manuscript.