The Surgical Education Checklist as an Adjunct to Training in the Operating Theatre: The Surgeons' Experience

An important aspect of surgical training occurs within the operating theatre. However, access to learning opportunities in this environment has been compromised by issues including reduced working hours and the COVID pandemic. Every training opportunity that does exist, therefore, needs to be maximized. The Surgical Education Checklist (SEC) is a tool that has been designed with the ambition of improving the quality and consistency of education-focused discussions in the operating theatre. The aim of this research was to explore the lived experience of surgeons who have used the SEC in practice.

Phenomenological methodology, using purposive sampling, was employed. Seven semi-structured interviews were conducted via Zoom with participants, all of whom were consultant surgeons who had used the SEC. Reflective thematic analysis was used to identify key themes.

Four key themes were generated: the checklist formalizes the intuitive, the trainee-trainer relationship is central to the experience, preoperative discussion improves learning, and routine feedback is ideal but difficult.

Introducing the SEC to the operating theatre may improve the quality and consistency of education-focused discussions, such as preoperative goal setting and postoperative feedback, by providing structure for these conversations as well as a prompt to have the discussion at all. The trainee-trainer relationship is at the core of these behaviors. Trainers acknowledge the uncertainty that can impede trainees and that a tool such as this may help enable trainees to be more assertive regarding their educational needs and become more confident in the eyes of the trainer. If the SEC were widely implemented, it may help standardize good practice so that all surgeons, not just the natural educators, can deliver this for their trainees and provide trainees with a tool to help them be assertive about their training needs.