Effective training and assessment of surgical skills, and the correlates of performance

This report briefly describes the University of Toronto Surgical Skills Centre and summarizes research in technical skills conducted at that site. This includes work on curriculum evaluation, the development and validation of assessment instruments, the retention of technical skills after training, and the prediction of success in surgery. These studies benefited from the large number of participants made available by the Surgical Skills Centre, allowing for randomized controlled studies or correlation studies where larger numbers are necessary for adequate statistical power. Recent emphasis has been on the further development of objective means of assessment and the exploration of correlates of surgical performance. Ongoing research is also aimed at simulator validation.