Cognitive training: How can it be adapted for surgical education?

Area of Science:

• Surgical Education
• Cognitive Psychology
• Motor Skill Acquisition

Background:

• Increasing time pressures, ethical, and legal constraints necessitate novel surgical training methods.
• Cognitive training, leveraging psychological processes, is a promising approach.
• Its success in sports suggests potential for surgical skill enhancement.

Purpose of the Study:

• To review evidence on cognitive training in surgery.
• To evaluate its role in surgical education.

Main Methods:

• Conducted scientific database searches for relevant studies.
• Selected and categorized key studies based on cognitive training type.

Main Results:

• Cognitive training interventions yielded superior performance benefits over control training.
• Improvements observed in surgical motor skills and non-technical outcomes.
• Limitations include small sample sizes and definitional inconsistencies.

Conclusions:

• Cognitive training is an effective supplementary tool for developing surgical technical skills.
• Further research is required to fully understand its application.
• Cognitive training is poised to be integral to future surgical education.