2nd World Congress on Surgical Training 17-19 June 2013

The aim of this congress is to answer the general question: ”How can a medical student be transformed into a skilled craftsman in surgery?”. This question is international and interdisciplinary, and involves several subtopics as: Accessible methods for practical surgical training, how to measure surgical skills, questions about structures for stepwise surgical training, and in addition the codes for collaboration beween surgeons and the device industry.

Sweden is a small country often associated with terms like ”quality” and ”safety”. This could be illustrated by several practical examples, as the leading safety principles constructing cars and by the fact that the very first national register to count surgical results in a nation wide database was created by Pr Peter Herberts in Gothenburg in 1979 (“The national hip replacement register”). Today the national quality registers in different surgical specialties are spread worldwide. In addition, Swedenhas established a so called “Zero Vision” for lethal traffic accidents.In health care systems all over the world the question of patient’s safety is frequently addressed, and some hospitals have implemented quality systems like the ISO 9000. A new law concerning Patient’s Safety was established in Sweden on the 1st of January 2011. However, despite all the efforts paid in this area, the questions about surgical skills are seldom mentioned when discussing patient’s safety or ISO 9000 labelling. The need for structured learning in surgery, keeping the patient’s safety in mind – as well as the surgeon’s feeling of security entering the surgical profession – is probably one of the most actual questions in modern surgery. In our time the practical training is no longer time-based but competency based, and efficient stepwise training systems with in-built control functions are mandatory to form new skilled surgeons replacing the retiring generation.

The World Congress on Surgical Training is addressing these questions, gathering several key opinion leaders in surgery from different specialties all over the world. In addition the questions about the collaboration between universities, hospitals and surgical instrument companies concerning surgical training is also included in the program.

The intended target audience is a mixture of people dealing with these questions in their daily work, being surgeon’s in practice, surgical teachers, residents in surgical training and decision makers of educational programs in surgery – or surgical course creators in surgical instrument companies.

For further information about our Scientific Advisory Board and the organisation has in 2012 been completed with a Local Scientific Committee, from the Sahlgrenska University Hospital and the Sahlgrenska Academy, Gothenburg, Sweden, please see separate pages.