Surgical tuition within Irish hospitals: a national survey.

ABSTRACT

INTRODUCTION: The General Medical Council (GMC) of the UK states that doctors have a duty to train and contribute to the education of colleagues, and that those involved in formal clinical teaching should have a teaching qualification. OBJECTIVES: We sought to evaluate the current levels of engagement of surgical trainees and recently appointed surgical consultants in clinical teaching. METHODS: All trainees who commenced a basic or higher surgical training post during or after 2007 were invited to participate. The electronic questionnaire was administered using the survey tool GetFeedback, collecting information regarding subspecialty, current role, quantity of teaching that respondents engaged in and who they taught and teaching motivations and barriers. RESULTS: There were 128 respondents out of 358 invitations to participate (36% response rate). Less than half (39%) of respondents had attended formal courses on clinical education. Over 70% of respondents engaged in clinical teaching for two or more hours each week. A lack of time and resources were noted as barriers to engaging in teaching. We found a low number of those involved in teaching seeking feedback after teaching sessions. CONCLUSION: In surgery, the apprenticeship model is still the framework for developing the surgeons of the future. In attempting to produce a highly skilled workforce for the future, we rely on those in senior positions to train those coming through; higher surgical trainees are relied on to teach the core surgical trainees and so on. Our study shows a low level of formalisation of this model.