Practice does not always make perfect: need for selection curricula in modern surgical training

Background It is hypothesized that not all surgical trainees are able to reach technical competence despite ongoing practice. The objectives of the study were to assess a trainees’ ability to reach technical competence by assessing learning patterns of the acquisition of surgical skills. Furthermore, it aims to determine whether individuals’ learning patterns were consistent across a range of open and laparoscopic tasks of variable difficulty. Methods Sixty-five preclinical medical students participated in a training curriculum with standardized feedback over forty repetitions of the following laparoscopic and open technical tasks: peg transfer (PT), circle cutting (CC), intracorporeal knot tie (IKT), one-handed tie, and simulated laparotomy closure. Data mining techniques were used to analyze the prospectively collected data and stratify the students into four learning clusters. Performance was compared between groups, and learning curve characteristics unique to trainees who have difficulty reaching technical competence were quantified. Results Top performers (22–35%) and high performers (32–42%) reached proficiency in all tasks. Moderate performers (25–37%) reached proficiency for all open tasks but not all laparoscopic tasks. Low performers (8–15%) failed to reach proficiency in four of five tasks including all laparoscopic tasks (PT 7.8%; CC 9.4%; IKT 15.6%). Participants in lower performance clusters demonstrated sustained performance disadvantage across tasks, with widely variable learning curves and no evidence of progression towards a plateau phase. Conclusions Most students reached proficiency across a range of surgical tasks, but low-performing trainees failed to reach competence in laparoscopic tasks. With increasing use of laparoscopy in surgical practice, screening potential candidates to identify the lowest performers may be beneficial.