Basic Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2016. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Orthop. Aug 18, 2016; 7(8): 475-480
Published online Aug 18, 2016. doi: 10.5312/wjo.v7.i8.475
Using simulation to train orthopaedic trainees in non-technical skills: A pilot study
Samuel R Heaton, Zoe Little, Kash Akhtar, Manoj Ramachandran, Joshua Lee
Samuel R Heaton, Zoe Little, Kash Akhtar, Manoj Ramachandran, Joshua Lee, Centre for Orthopaedics, Royal London Hospital, Barts Health NHS Trust, London E1 1BB, United Kingdom
Author contributions: Heaton SR and Akhtar K drafted the manuscript; Little Z collated the statistics; Ramachandran M and Lee J designed the course.
Institutional review board statement: All participant questionnaires were obtained with the informed consent from the candidates with express permission for this paper. All responses are anonymised. There was no requirement for ethical approval as this was purely a questionnaire of doctors experiences of a course.
Informed consent statement: All involved persons gave their verbal informed consent prior to study inclusion. All study responses were anonymised.
Conflict-of-interest statement: To the best of our knowledge, no conflict of interest exists.
Data sharing statement: Dataset and course specifics are available from the corresponding author. Participant consent was obtained to share the data but all feedback data is anonymous.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Samuel R Heaton, FRCS, Centre for Orthopaedics, Royal London Hospital, Barts Health NHS Trust, Whitechapel Road, London E1 1BB, United Kingdom. samheaton@hotmail.com
Telephone: +44-20-73777000
Received: February 15, 2016
Peer-review started: February 16, 2016
First decision: March 24, 2016
Revised: April 5, 2016
Accepted: June 1, 2016
Article in press: June 3, 2016
Published online: August 18, 2016
Core Tip

Core tip: We have developed what we believe to be the first non-technical skills course specifically catering to the unique issues affecting orthopaedic surgeons in everyday practice. Participants demonstrated an improved understanding of the importance of non-technical performance, recognised its relevance to improving patient safety and expressed a desire for it to become an integral part of training. Non-technical skills training may also provide a means of identifying and supporting trainees in difficulty.