Supermicrosurgery Training Model: A Step-by-Step Illustrated Guide to the Chicken Thigh Free Flap

Microsurgery is an essential skill of the modern plastic and reconstructive surgeon and one that requires practice to master. Consequently, cost-effective training models, preferentially those that spare living animal sacrifice, are crucial to training. The chicken thigh is an easily obtainable and affordable model that accurately mimics human vessels. In this article, we present an illustrated step-by-step guide to harvest and anastomose a muscular free flap of the chicken thigh, using the puboischiofemoralis pars lateralis muscle. The smallest vessels dissected had a diameter of 0.8 mm, allowing supermicrosurgery training. The puboischiofemoralis muscular flap can be consistently harvested, and its pedicle anastomosed to distal branches of the femoral vessels. The model provided a cost-effective simulation of vessel preparation and anastomosis suitable for microsurgical practice. The puboischiofemoralis complex muscular free flap of the chicken thigh is a reproducible, easily available training model for the practice of microsurgical and supermicrosurgical skills.