Comprehensive Surgical Coaching

Simulation in surgical skills training is widely accepted as a necessary step to improve surgical training outside the operating room. Simulation predominately focuses on teaching a specific task or procedure. Once this task is acquired ongoing optimization of technique is desirable. Commonly ongoing skills assessment occurs in the form of peer feedback throughout training rotations. This feedback is frequently subjective and of variable educational use. Identifying ongoing technical training needs and enabling personalized objective feedback represents an important training concept that has not yet been formally used in resident training. The specific goal of this study is to prove the effect of a comprehensive surgical coaching (CSC) approach which combines concepts of behavior modeling training, task debriefing and error recognition to improve overall surgical technique without additional technical skills training.