The Faculty of Surgical Trainers (FST) and the Association for the Study of Medical Education (ASME) have come together in a ground-breaking partnership to launch a series of research grants to promote research in this vital area.
These grants, of up to £3,000, can be used to support either a research study or evaluation of a teaching innovation in any field of surgical education and training.
Successful applicants will be able to present their work at both the FST annual conference and the ASME Annual Scholarship Meeting.
What is the purpose of the grant?
The small research grants are intended to support evaluation or research into surgical education and training. Projects should either lead directly to improvements in surgical training practice or increase our understanding of an aspect of surgical training. There are no specific themes for this call, and all applications will be considered on their merits.
Deadline for applications: Wednesday 19 May 2021
For more information on the grants, visit our grants page here.
We are pleased to announce the following recipients of the joint ASME / Faculty of Surgical Trainers Research Grants:
Name | Job Title | Research Title | Overview |
---|---|---|---|
Aimee Marie Charnell 2020 |
General Surgery Fellow, Leeds Institute of Medical Education |
How do surgical trainees learn Outpaitent Clinics? A video-reflexive ethnography study. |
Outpatient clinics form a significant workload within surgical practice, both for consultants and trainees. In other elements of surgery, training is incremental; however, in clinics, large responsibility is often given early in surgical training. While learning in the outpatient clinic has been studied previously, it is yet to be explored by observing trainees in their natural clinical practice. This study examines how trainees learn within outpatient clinics by filming trainees completing outpatient clinics. Clips chosen by the traineeand Consultant will be shown to multi-diciplinary surgical teams who will determine how to best support trainees in clinics. |
Karin Baajtes 2020 |
Head of Division of Clinical Anatomy, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Stellenbosch University, South Africa |
Real-life procedural videos: an additional assessment tool for structured oral examinations of surgical trainees? |
The global COVID pandemic provides opportunities for innovation in the postgraduate surgical teaching program. Real-life recordings of procedural surgery cases as an addition to the traditional teaching methods seems fitting. These videos also have the potential to be utilised during surgical oral assessments. An additional benefit of the recordings is the possibility of remote application, thereby limiting person-to person contact as well as long distance travel to exam venues in wide geographical areas. The COVID pandemic has stimulated the revision of teaching and assessment practices in our surgical curriculum, but thorough evaluation of such actions should be researched. |
Kartik Logishetty 2019 |
Speciality Trainee in T&O, North West London Training Programme |
Can team training in virtual reality improve performance of complex open surgery? |
In its simplest form, the surgical team is comprised of the surgeon, an assistant, and an instrument technician (a scrub nurse). Failures in teamwork and communication are a more common cause of mistakes during surgery than the surgeon’s technical skill. Currently, these team members are not routinely trained together, so there may be variation from day-to-day. Virtual Reality (VR) headsets place the wearer in a simulated operating room and use virtual instruments to perform surgery. This research will ask if team-training for hip replacement in VR is safer and more effective than the status quo – training separately, before performing surgery together. |
Arpan Tahim |
ST5 doctoral student with the Institute of Education Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, London Deanery |
Understanding Workplace-Based Assessment – How Surgeons Learn through the Use of Workplace-Based Assessment during Specialist Training |
Study investigating how surgeons in training learn through workplace-based assessment (WBA). The study will be conducted through UCL Institute of Education and aims to better understand the complex social-interactional processes that occur during WBAs and the learning that subsequently results from them. It will involve audiovisual analysis of the in-situ WBAs, which surgeons in training undergo, triangulated with data derived from completed assessment proformas and participant interviews. |
Joshil Lodhia |
Cardiothoracic Trainee, Leeds General Infirmary |
Quantitative motion analysis of surgical skills to assess improvement in trainees’ performance following deliberate practice |
Surgical training in previous decades was dependant on speed of operating and obtaining a high volume of operative cases. Due to the European Working Time Directive and the need to ensure highest standards, trainees are no longer able to obtain this volume. Training in the art of surgery needs to become more explicit. This study aims to assess the fine movements of surgery with the use of magnetic sensors. This will allow both trainers and trainees to ensure the subtleties of surgery can be developed in a safe environment outside theatres before ensuring a high level of skill.
|
Paul Sutton |
Specialty Registrar and Honorary Senior Lecturer, University of Liverpool |
Exploring clinical decision making amongst surgical trainees in a simulated environment |
Clinical decision making is a relatively poorly understood non-technical skill, but one which is essential to surgeons both in and out of the operating theatre. We have planned an exploratory pilot study to help better understand clinical decision making in an acute clinical setting, specifically the assessment and management of the critically ill surgical patient. The study utilises a simulated scenario, after which the participant watches the video with the investigator and the performance is evaluated using teach-back interviewing. The transcripts of these interviews will be thematically analysed using standardised techniques to explore behaviourism with respect to decision making. |
Sotiris Papaspyros |
ST7 Cardiothoracic trainee, Edinburgh Royal Infirmary |
Reliability of low fidelity simulation models in acquisition of basic surgical skills outside the operating room. The role of deliberate practice |
Surgical training has evolved to conform with several limitations: Shorter work-week for residents, increasing complexity of cases, emphasis on operating room efficiency and mitigation of medical errors. Acquisition of basic surgical skills can take place outside the operating room on low-fidelity, readily available simulation materials (bananas, potatoes, poached eggs). Deliberate practice can provide the educational framework to achieve competence in surgical tasks (needle rotation, economy of movement, pace). We aim to provide evidence that low-fidelity simulation models and deliberate practice can, reliably and consistently, be used to teach novice aspiring surgeons basic surgical skills outside the operating room. |
How do Surgical Trainees Learn in Outpatient Clinics? A Video‐Reflexive Ethnography Study.
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