International Collaborative Develops Hybrid Train-the-Trainer Course on Minimally Invasive Surgical Techniques

In late spring 2020, Professor Evangelos Georgiou, American College of Surgeons Accredited Education Institutes International Committee (ACS-AEI IC), and Professor Mariano Gimenez, Institute of Image-Guided Surgery–Research Institute Against Digestive Cancer (IHU-IRCAD), decided to create a hybrid train-the-trainer course. A planning committee including Professors Georgiou and Enochsson from ACS-AEI IC and Professor Gimenez and Alain Garcia Vazquez, MD, from IHU-IRCAD, Strasbourg, was formed. An initial brainstorming meeting was held virtually on August 13, 2020, followed by regular virtual meetings every two weeks. These regular meetings were attended by Lesley Daloz and Agnès Gronfier, Education Program Coordinators at IHU-Strasbourg. Professor Silvana Perretta, Vice President, IRCAD, and Director of Education, IHU-Strasbourg, also attended some meetings.

Planning Committee Virtual Meeting. Courtesy of IRCAD.

These virtual planning meetings continued through spring 2021, and a date for the completion of the course was finally set for November 2–5, 2021. The course would consist of two parts: Pre-recorded videos that participants could review before the start of the course, and live lectures by participating teachers delivered via Zoom during the course. Every day during the course itself, participants could have discussions with and ask questions of a course chair, a co-chair, and a panel of experts. Two moderators would keep track of participant questions in the Zoom chat. Each day of the course had a main theme:

Day 1 - Fundamentals of Training Pedagogy
Day 2 - The Journey from Simulation to the Clinics
Day 3 - E-Learning
Day 4 - Soft Skills

Even though the large number of preregistrations was higher than the final number of registered course participants, the course faculty were pleased by the commitment shown by participants during the course. In the final evaluation of the course, the overall assessment score of all daily sessions was 4.55 (based on a 5-point grading scale where 1 was the lowest and 5 the highest).

The mean overall scores of the different types of activities are presented in this figure:

Train the Trainer Course - FACE-TO-FACS Mean Overall score

The scores each day were at a relatively high level since all the evaluated components never decreased below 4/5; however, there were some small differences. For instance, day one generally got a slightly higher score than day two, but overall, the scores remained at a high level.

Train-the-Trainer FACE-TO-FACE Daily Scores

Particularly gratifying was that course participants rated the scientific level high (4.78), and they felt that they would be better trainers after this course (4.72).

The COVID-19 pandemic has made it necessary to modify the way courses are presented. The advantage of a virtual course is that it is possible, as in this case, to easily gather course participants and teachers from different nations and continents. On the other hand, due to technical and other limitations of video meetings, conditions aren't ideal for spontaneous discussions and contacts. That limitation is highlighted by the slightly lower scores on the "Quality of connection: Sound" and "It was easy to interact and ask questions" parts of the evaluation.

Train-the-Trainer FACE-TO-FACE Evaluations

Overall, the course faculty are happy that this hybrid train-the-trainer course was received so well. The course was hybrid in the sense that it consisted of pre-recorded videos and live lectures presented via Zoom. We intend to keep this concept, but of course we hope that we will not have to get to the letter Omega in the Greek alphabet before we can arrange a real hybrid course that combines pre-recorded videos with teaching onsite at IHU-IRCAD.

Course Faculty

L. Enochsson
ACS AEI International Committee; Department of Surgical and Perioperative Sciences, Surgery, Umeå University; and CLINTEC, Surgery, Karolinska Institutet, Sweden

A. Garcia Vazquez
Institute of Image-Guided Surgery, Strasbourg, France

S. Perretta
University of Strasbourg, IHU-IRCAD, Strasbourg, France

E. Georgiou
ACS AEI International Committee, and Simulation Center, Athens University Medical School, Athens, Greece

M. E. Gimenez
ACS AEI International Committee; University of Strasbourg, IHU-IRCAD, Strasbourg, France; and University of Buenos Aires, Argentina