An evidence-based approach to surgical teaching in ophthalmology

An apprenticeship model has traditionally been used in procedural and surgical teaching. As the pressures of work hours and patient outcome monitoring increase, surgical teachers need a more flexible plan for teaching procedural skills. We attempt to delineate a program of preprocedural, intraprocedural, and postprocedural teaching that can be used in the field of ophthalmology to maximize a resident's skill acquisition in a constructive learning environment. We review the literature on surgical teaching from within ophthalmology as well as other surgical fields and combine this with teaching experience in an ophthalmic surgical training program to produce a collection of procedural teaching guidelines. These guidelines are structured to serve in both individual teaching settings and in curriculum design.