ABSTRACT
Practical skill training courses are an increasingly popular method of teaching surgical skills. Few data are available from instructional courses indicating how successful they are at imparting practical skills to those individuals who attend them. We aimed to identify the skill benefits gained by trainee surgeons attending a 5-day microsurgical skills course. A global scoring system was devised to objectively assess the level of skill employed by trainees to complete an arterial microvascular anastamosis. Vessel patency, anastamotic construct, and care of tissue in the surrounding operative field were taken into account. Postoperative tissue viability and physiological vessel function following anastamosis were also investigated. The majority of surgeons (60%) exhibited an increase in their level of microsurgical skill during the course. The remaining candidates remained static or deteriorated. Attendance at this microsurgical training workshop resulted in an improvement in microsurgical skills in most trainees. In-course assessment by training courses would allow identification of individuals requiring further training or skill refinement.
Subject(s)
Clinical Competence , Education, Medical, Continuing , Microsurgery/education , Anastomosis, Surgical/education , Animals , Curriculum , Femoral Artery/surgery , Humans , Rats , Rats, Sprague-Dawley , Tissue SurvivalABSTRACT
Primary hyperhidrosis is a troublesome disorder of excessive perspiration that affects as much as 1 percent of the population. Sufferers are usually young and are often affected by related social, professional, and psychological problems. Many methods for treating hyperhidrosis exist; however, no single treatment is without its weakness or complications. This article aims to clarify the issues related to the use of each treatment modality, including the most recently proposed method using botulinum toxin.
