Design and evaluation of a surgical boot camp: a step-by-step guide to curriculum development and impact assessment

Abstract

Background: The transition from medical school to surgical residency often leaves students underprepared for essential technical procedures, impacting their confidence and patient safety. Surgical boot camps can help address this skill gap, but few articles have described exactly how to organize a boot camp. We aimed to precisely describe the simulation stations and evaluate the effectiveness of the boot camp. Methods: We conducted a prospective, monocentric, observational study at the University Hospital of Clermont-Ferrand (France) over a 3-year period, assessing technical skills and cognitive workload before and after boot camp using a validated questionnaire. We included sixty-five medical students (34 female, 31 male) who had been accepted into a general surgery residency program were included. We described precisely the 9 simulation stations. Results: After the boot camp, participants reported increased confidence in basic surgical skills, with significant improvements in technical performance. Satisfaction scores were high, averaging 8.8 out of 10 for women and 9.0 for men. Segmenting the boot camp into multiple workshops made it easy to organize. Conclusion: This surgical boot camp significantly reduced the perceived cognitive workload and improved the confidence of incoming residents, addressing key challenges in pre-residency preparation. By providing a detailed description of our simulation workshops, we aim to facilitate the implementation of similar programs in other institutions.