Determining trainees' knowledge of surgical anatomy: A specialist's perspective

Intraoperative identification of anatomical structures can potentially reduce the risk of surgical complications. This study aims to report specialists' perspectives about the anatomical structures that third-year residents should be able to identify during surgical operations. In addition, the factors which may influence specialists' opinions are discussed.

This qualitative cross-sectional study was conducted on obstetricians and gynaecologists between 1/2/2019 and 30/10/2019. The specialists practising in a hospital with a residency programme were included, and were asked to rate the importance of structures that a third-year resident should be able to identify during operations. We performed a comparison of responses based on specialists' age, gender, practice type, years of experience, and surgical workload.

One hundred and sixty-five specialists were recruited with a response rate of 69.3%. The mean age of respondents was 46.1 years, and they had a mean experience of 13.4 years. Furthermore, 86.6% of specialists rated all the anatomical structures as "more important". The importance of surgical structures, as rated by specialists, was not related to gender, years of experience, or surgical workload. The importance of 63% of the anatomical structures was rated higher by junior specialists than senior specialists.

Knowledge of anatomical structures is vital for gynaecologic residency training. Specialist's perceptions of the importance of various anatomical structures reflect their understanding of the training requirements. Our results highlighted the important anatomical structures that third-year residents are expected to identify during surgical operations. Future research may establish a reference for the core anatomy knowledge essential for each training year.