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training [ 4 ]. Reasoning behind this train of thought dates back to 1987, when Barnes
highlighted reasons for surgical skills and simulation training including fiscal use of
resources in training, increasing complexity of procedures, limitations of available
patients, and legal pressures for providers’ optimal skills [ 5 ]. When the Surgical
Skills Lab first opened, the Department of Surgery was accepting 12 surgical resi-
dents a year and was responsible for the education of 54 residents across subspecial-
ties including general surgery, orthopedic surgery, otolaryngology, plastic surgery,
and urology. Last year, the Surgical Skills Lab provided the environment for and
assisted in the training of 160 surgical residents and additional resident subspecial-
ties including internal medicine, family medicine, obstetrics and gynecology, and
emergency medicine. In addition to foundational residency skills training, each sub-
specialty has their own respective curriculum detailed and focused on procedures
within their scope of practice. Each year, 176 modules are completed annually.
Every day, opportunities for new curriculum and corresponding lab modules are
requested and accordingly developed and implemented to meet the needs of
learners.
With this extensive growth, the Surgical Skills Lab has outgrown its initial 1600
square foot location and has been established in 2015 as the J Roland Folse Surgical
Skills Center named after the founder of the Southern Illinois University Department
of Surgery. The Surgical Skills Center relocated to a new 3700 square foot facility
in the Memorial Center for Learning and Innovation, a state-of-the-art multimillion-
dollar establishment dedicated to the pursuit of advancement and innovation in
medical education and care. This move provided the additional space to foster con-
tinued aggressive expansion of the center and dramatically advanced the high-
fidelity technological capabilities to meet and serve the educational needs of the
School of Medicine.
While the Surgical Skills Center has been very fortunate in their move to the new
location, the leadership active in this development asserts that surgeons as educators
can establish and foster this culture of learning wherever the location might be, from
a classroom to a closet or from an empty hospital room to an operating room not in
use [ 6 ]. Two schools of thought are prevalent in regard to what is the optimal
directed training: utilizing low-fidelity task models to train necessary basic opera-
tive skills, compared to high-fidelity simulators focused on mimicking the contex-
tual experience of operating [ 7 ]. For the Surgical Skills Center, initially mechanical
models such as laparoscopic box trainers in consideration of associated costs were
determined to be of greatest value for skills improvement, as for many other institu-
tions [ 8 ]. As buy-in from medical community leaders has grown, high-fidelity simu-
lators have been integrated into practice to maximize all opportunities of learning.
Residency Boot Camp Curriculum
Surgeons as educators in the School of Medicine were led to recognize the need for
a general surgery educational skills practicum determined by incoming interns’
variable fund of knowledge and technical skills [ 9 ]. Further informed by student and
M.R. Romanelli et al.