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Looking to the Future, Both Ours and Yours
Reflecting on our growth over the years, both in success and in failure, select priori-
ties have kept our focus aligned and enabled us to continue to progress. While the
size of a program, location of the skills lab, and available support at your institution
may change over time as ours have, what makes a Surgical Skills Center program
successful are continual learning needs assessments, a supportive culture of learn-
ing and leading, and most importantly the physical environment for learners and
teachers to interact, practice, and discuss the details of their craft outside of the
pressures of the live medical environment. While the needs of our institution have
changed throughout the years, continual reassessment has been paramount to the
development of our program and, most importantly, the learning of our students.
Now more than ever, the SIU School of Medicine J. Roland Folse, M.D. Surgical
Skills Center is recognizing the value in the learning needs assessments and corre-
sponding curriculum we set forth 16 years ago. Prioritizing the learner’s needs and
embracing a pursuant culture of learning are the primary reason behind why we
believe the initial residency boot camp curriculum at our institution expanded so
quickly. Attending surgeons were pivotal in leading the development of curriculum.
As the Surgical Skills Center maintains its commitment to continuous innovation, it
has overcome new challenges of learning in ways we didn’t think were possible; it
is the supportive culture of embracing change in learning that sets a program apart.
Recently, orthopedic surgeons in the community endeavored to provide contin-
ued medical education opportunities for their learning community. By utilizing
technological advances provided by the Surgical Skills Center in conjunction with
the Memorial Center for Learning and Innovation, surgeons were able to live stream
arthroscopy procedures on a cadaver model to improve the education of their resi-
dents, peers, therapists (both physical and occupational), and all care providers
along the orthopedic service line in pursuit of improved coordinated care. Moving
forward, we anticipate the Surgical Skills Center’s further integration into the medi-
cal and local community while fostering a commitment to interdisciplinary team-
work among care providers [ 39 ].
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2007;142:573–55. - Aucar JA.The History of Simulation. In: Tsuda ST, Scott DJ, Jones DB (eds), Textbook of
simulation. Woodbury, CT: Cine-Med, Inc; 2012. p. 3–14. - Barnes RW. Surgical handicraft: teaching and learning surgical skills. Am J Surg.
1987;153(5):422–7. - Gould JC. Building a laparoscopic surgical skills training laboratory: resources and support.
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M.R. Romanelli et al.