What Makes a Surgical Teacher Great?
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EDITORIAL
What Makes a Surgical Teacher Great? Dhananjaya Sharma 1 & Sandeep Kumar 2 Accepted: 13 October 2020 # Association of Surgeons of India 2020
A great surgical teacher is revered, but “what makes a surgical teacher great?” is not so easy to define. Teaching is a soft skill, and there are no many objective scales to assess teaching abilities. A recent systemic review found only 23 studies on this crucial topic; all of these touched upon global qualities of a good teacher. Of these, three-fourth studies did not define the qualities of a great surgical teacher [1]. Another review mentioned 4 important themes as positive attributes of great surgical teacher: “character” (approachability, patience, enthusiasm, encouraging/supportiveness), “procedural” (willingness to let trainee operate, balance between supervision and independence), “teamwork and communication” (sets educational aims and objectives, ability to use appropriate feedback, communication skills, and time availability to train), and “clinical” (capable, good relationships with patients, and the healthcare team) [2]. All of us know that above everything else, great surgical teachers are first and foremost good doctors who provide exceptional patient care which goes hand-inhand with effective surgical teaching and forms its foundation [3, 4]. Fame of great surgical teachers is not confined to their hospitals, but it spreads all over the world as their disciples carry it with them. “Swadeshe pujyate raja, vidwan sarvatra pujyate - The emperor is worshiped in the territory of his kingdom but the scholars are bestowed respect all over the world.” Much before the calamity and distress of COVID pandemic, surgical teaching was already facing multidimensional challenges and proved demanding to teach the rapidly evolving surgical technologies. Increasing time constraints due to * Dhananjaya Sharma [email protected] Sandeep Kumar [email protected] 1
Department of Surgery, Government NSCB Medical College, Jabalpur, MP 482003, India
2
Indian Journal of Surgery, Lucknow 226024, India
decreasing resident learning hours, lack of longitudinal relationships with residents due to their rotations, increasing patient demands, increasing emphasis on patient safety issues, and their audits and cost constraints due to healthcare economics and many other oddities made the problem worse. This pandemic has further compounded these challenges and caused a major disruption of surgical teaching. This calls for more efficient surgical teaching as the skill and the pride of future surgeons is at stakes.
Global Teaching Skills Very few great surgical teachers have had formal teacher’s training, but their instinct of conscientiousness paved their way to move forward. They demonstrate global teaching skills. They have mastery over basic teaching competencies like commitment to teaching, learner engagement, learnercenteredness, content knowledge, and relevance. Their clinical and operative competence, interpersonal and communication skills, professionalism and role m
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