“Halle surgery week”: how a teaching format awakens medical students’ interest in surgery

Abstract

Background: A practical education in surgery is difficult to conduct in a student-centered manner and is thus often inadequate. New teaching concepts are required to provide students with insights into surgery and make the field more appealing. Methods: As part of a two-week facultative event, medical students followed eight live surgical procedures from different disciplines from an auditorium. In the auditorium, the procedures were simultaneously moderated by an experienced surgeon. Before and after every procedure, questionnaires were used to analyze whether the teaching event was suited to improve an understanding and interest for the field of surgery. Results: A total of 709 completed questionnaires (pre and post) from 381 students were collected. The self-reported learning effect was evaluated as good or very good by students. In many of the presented disciplines, experiencing a live surgical procedure was associated with significant positive changes in attitude regarding each discipline in general, a potential clinical traineeship in the discipline and choosing the discipline as a later specialization. Conclusion: The high attendance as well as the evaluation results suggest a high acceptance for the teaching event. The teaching format is suited to improve the understanding of surgical procedures and had a positive effect on medical students’ attitude towards surgical disciplines.