Criteria for Inclusion of Articles in Annotated Bibliography

Each review includes a summary of the work, as well as a critical analysis and classification according to the "Kirkpatrick hierarchy," an independently developed method for the assessment of research, which has been adopted for use in medical education (see Appendix for details).

Although the authors and developers of this Web resource have attempted to include all published research papers relevant to technical skills education in surgery, no guarantee of comprehensive coverage should be assumed.

Search engines were used to survey the literature. Following these searches, the cited references contained in the published papers were scanned for additional relevant papers. Finally, searches were made based on the authors of the relevant found papers.

We did not as a rule generally include abstracts or descriptive papers, and specifically no studies that simply described simulators or simulation programs. Also excluded were any research papers on cognitive or behavioral aspects of training, such as Advanced Trauma Life Support (ATLS) or Advanced Cardiac Life Support (ACLS), that are not specifically related to technical skill.