Awards and Activities

Canadian Surgical Technologies & Advanced Robotics (CSTAR), London, ON, Canada

Royal College Surgical Foundations Bootcamp: Here’s Your Scalpel and Here’s How to Use It!

July 1, 2022, signaled the beginning of surgical residency for a new cohort of “surgical interns” across North America. While this traditional start date has been relatively constant for the last 100 years of surgical training, over the last 10 years there has been the development and roll out of a dedicated boot camp added to the training schedule with the main objective being to rapidly up-skill the cohort of young surgeons so that they are more prepared and confident to meet the demands of their clinical workload.

For the first 2 weeks of July 2022, CSTAR facilitated 32 surgical interns enrolled at the University of Western Ontario across its many divisions. First-year residents from cardiac surgery, oral and maxillofacial surgery, orthopedics, urology, OBGYN, and many other divisions came together to both learn the basic skills of their trade and also to bond and form the beginnings of the interpersonal connections that would make their upcoming years and careers a success. The bootcamp included multiple stations such as suturing labs, chest tube training, and high-fidelity trauma simulations. Through collaboration with CSTAR, students were able to gain exposure to and participate in a full gamut of surgical experiences. The residents gave very positive feedback about the 2 weeks of training and were particularly impressed at the diligence and hard work of the CSTAR staff who supported their learning in a friendly and professional manner.

Upon evaluation and reflection, there is no doubt that the objectives of the Surgical Foundations bootcamp were met. Surgical residents left the camp more competent, confident, and prepared to function successfully in the operating theatres, clinic spaces, and emergency rooms of London’s major teaching hospitals. We look forward to welcoming our next cohort!

Hospital virtual Valdecilla, Santander, Spain

Delegation Visit to IRCAD France

Last April, a delegation from Valdecilla had the opportunity to visit fellow AEI IRCAD France—a leading center in the field of robotic surgery—to learn in depth about their amazing projects and institute, especially their refined work in the field of robotic surgery training. It was a very enriching experience that will help Valdecilla with a new remodeling project for the surgical learning facilities planned for next year.

Research Institute Against Digestive Cancer (IRCAD) / Institute of Image-Guided Surgery (IHU), Strasbourg, France

New Master Program in Image Guided Therapy: Surgical Science and Innovation Technology

An IRCAD partnership is inspiring and growing the next generation of medical innovators with the launch of their Master program in Imaged Guided Therapy at IHU IRCAD, Strasbourg University.

Interventional radiology and percutaneous surgery are 2 more minimally invasive fields that use the digital image to precisely and uniquely direct interventions. These interventions guided by various imaging modalities are truly minimally invasive and have become mainstays in the treatment of postsurgical complications and are assuming a greater role in the treatment of digestive diseases and cancers.

As a result, in many cases, interventional procedures are becoming the treatment of choice as they offer a minimally invasive alternative to invasive surgery without the associated morbidity and mortality.

This 2-year Master program will stress the utility and importance of ultrasound in the workflow of the digestive surgeon and radiologist where it can become—along with CT and MRI—the eye of the practitioner to see and target the patient’s disease. The program covers the entire spectrum of diagnostic surgical and interventional radiology.

The curriculum is designed for trainees (radiologists or surgeons) to acquire the principles and advanced techniques in abdominal interventions in adults. These include image guided biopsies, central venous catheter insertion, percutaneous and endoscopic hybrid biliary interventions, percutaneous gastrostomy and jejunostomy, percutaneous abscess drainage and biopsy, percutaneous tumor ablative therapies and chemoembolization.

As with all the IHU Masters programs, didactic content will be presented online by world experts using the unique interactive web platform of the IHU. Hands on practice will take place on site utilizing the IHU’s state of the art training platform and clinical experience will also be a part of the education and will be obtained either at the IHU or at the student’s home institution.

The IGT program provides multidisciplinary training in all aspects of percutaneous surgery and interventional radiology.

This 2-year curriculum is designed for surgeons, radiologists, gastroenterologists, and any practitioner involved in image-guided interventions and tumor ablation therapies.

The program is committed to encouraging trainees to gain expertise through a maximum of hands-on experience by performing complex procedures in our research training facilities and hybrid ORs.

Who should Apply? Surgeons, Radiologists, Critical Care Physicians, Emergency Physicians, Internists, Primary Care Physicians. Twenty students accepted annually.

Requirements: Only open as continuing training (no resident)

Logistics: 2-year program

Location: IHU in Strasbourg France

Application Deadline: The 2022 Courses are now in progress—please contact Agnes Gronfier, agnes.gronfier@ihu-strasbourg.eu, for more information.

University of Toronto Surgical Skills Centre at Mount Sinai Hospital, Toronto, ON, Canada

This article by Marina Romanova, SimSinai Technician, first appeared in University of Toronto Surgical Skills Centre at Mount Sinai Hospital’s Revival newsletter, Spring 2022

Maternal and Infant Emergencies Readiness

Mount Sinai Hospital (MSH) has been the leading Centre in the greater Toronto area in numbers of delivery cases for many consecutive years. With each year our emergency department sees increasing numbers of complex peripartum and pediatric cases. SimSinai Centre’s Management recognizes the importance of teaching, training, and readiness for mother/fetal, newborn, and pregnancy emergency cases especially for front-line response staff.

Starting from September 2021, we were looking closely into the prospect of acquiring new automatic birthing simulator and high-fidelity newborn simulator to run life-like obstetric emergency simulations for emergency medicine, family practitioners in rural communities, and obstetrics/gynecology teams.

To represent some of the best systems currently available on the market, SimMom and SimNewB by Laerdal have been trialed in several Mock Codes teaching events at the emergency department last year. The trials made simulations more realistic, which received positive feedback from instructors and participants.

Following this, in-house demonstrations of a broad variety of birthing, newborn, and pediatric simulators of ranged fidelity offered by Gaumard was organized and took place in spring. Noelle, Baby Tory, Baby Hal, and PEDI were brought to SimSinai Centre and presented for discussion to education program leads.

SimSinai Centre is actively involved in on-site training for MSH staff. The new simulators are expected to enrich the learning experience by providing hands-on procedural training with a focus on managing challenging mother-fetal, infant, and pediatric situations in emergency, critical, and trauma settings with collaborative efforts of the multidisciplinary teams. In addition, purchasing of new airway management manikins for infant and pediatric emergency sims in on-site training will be welcomed addition for emergency department staff practical skills upgrading program.