Digital video recordings for training, assessment, and revalidation of surgical skills

Surgical training is undergoing drastic changes, and new strategies should be adopted to keep quality standards. The authors review and advocate the use of surgical recordings as a useful complement to current training, assessment, and revalidation modalities. For trainees, such recordings would promote quality-based and competence-based surgical training and allow for self-evaluation. Video logbooks could be used to aid interaction between trainer and trainee, and facilitate formative assessment. Recordings of surgery could also be integrated into trainees' portfolios and regular assessments. Finally, such recordings could make surgeons' revalidation more sensible. The routine use of records of surgical procedures could become an integral component of the standard of care. This would have been an unattractive suggestion until recently, as analogue recording techniques are inconvenient, cumbersome, and time consuming. Today, however, with the advent of inexpensive digital technologies, such a concept is realistic and is likely to improve patient care.