Dedicated skills training rotation

A unique feature of our General Surgery Residency education program is our dedicated skills rotation. During this rotation, interns are given the opportunity to learn many technical skills and declarative knowledge components in a safe, low-stakes, simulated environment. Interns spend 4 weeks in the Johnson Center for Surgical Innovation (JCSI). The curriculum includes:

  • Airway management
  • Basic, intermediate, and advanced suturing and knot-tying
  • Central lines
  • Intraosseous lines
  • OR instrument identification and usage
  • Code management
  • Vascular anastomosis
  • Bowel anastomosis
  • Advanced Training in Laparoscopic Suturing
  • Fundamentals of Laparoscopic Surgery
  • Laparoscopic cholecystectomy
  • Flexible endoscopy
  • Drug Abuse Screening and Referral to Intervention
  • Team STEPPS communication
  • Physics and usage of ultrasound

This dedicated skills training rotation has been made possible by a Veterans Administration Educational Innovation grant awarded to Ross Willis, Ph.D., Surgery’s Director of Education and Director of the JCSI, and Kent Van Sickle, M.D., Division Chief for General Surgery.