Teaching And Testing Basic Surgical Skills Without Using Patients

Background: Nowadays, clinical skills centers are important structural components of authentic universities in the world. These centers can be use for tuition of cognitive, affective and psychomotor skills. In this study we have designed a surgical course, consist of 19 theoretical knowledge (cognitive skills) and 10 procedural skills.Purpose: teaching and testing the designed course. Methods: This study has been conducted on 678 medical students at clerkship stage. Pre and post-self assessment technique has been used to assess learning progress. A multivariate statistical comparison were adapted for Judgments of learning achievement, Hotelling’s T-square has been used to ascertain the differences between pre and post tests score. For measuring the reliability of the test items. Cronbach's Alpha has been used to measure the reliability of test item.Results: The reliability of the test was 0.84 for cognitive skills and 0.92 for procedural skills. The two tailed test for comparing each pairs of score of 19 cognitive items showed a significant statistical difference between 13 items (P=0.000). For procedural skills the differences between the mean score of 9 items were significant (P=0.000). These results indicate learning achievements by students.Conclusion: This study suggests that, the ability of trainees in both cognitive and psychomotor skills can be improved by tuition of basic surgical skills in skill Lab. (without use of patients).