The quality of the care offered to patients depends in part on the advancement of knowledge and its alignment with patient needs. Several of the Initiative’s projects are therefore aimed at supporting professionals in the continuous improvement of their surgical practices in order to provide care that is increasingly adapted to the needs of families. Ultimately, these practices will allow caregivers to personalize their approach, hence enabling patients and families to feel more supported and enjoy a more streamlined care experience. Surgery-related research and training projects are therefore being developed within MUSCO.
Surgical Training
Project leader
The project
Plan basic pediatric surgery training sessions
MUSCO Strategic Goal
Leverage the knowledge of professionals who will be treating the next generation of patients
Project Objectives
Progress Report
Surgical training is one of the main projects developed within the Mirella & Lino Saputo Foundation Chair in Pediatric Surgical Education and Patient and Family Centred Care.
The project has developments across these action areas:
1 – Ongoing distribution of the Pediatric Surgery Textbook: Clinical Pediatric Surgery, A Case-Based Interactive Approach which was released in September 2019 and continues to be widely distributed. It includes 25 videos of surgical procedures.
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Purchase the manual
2 – Presentation on Globalization in Surgical Education given as part of McGill and MCH’s Pediatric Surgical Grand Rounds (held in October 2021), describing an approach to providing surgical education in contexts where access to educational resources is limited
3 – Launch of the #CBCLIPS educational program on social media (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube): a series of video episodes that summarize the principles of pediatric surgery in a few minutes and emphasize important clinical principles in this field. Additional episodes were created by young surgeons mentored by the Chairholder.
4 – Organization of annual boot camps to all new residents in the discipline in Canada and the United States on topics such as leadership, teamwork, simulation scenarios, communication with patients, consent and family perspectives, and to all new first-year surgical residents at McGill with a focus on the fundamentals of pediatric surgery.
5 – Contribution to the educational infrastructure of the department and faculty through the Chairholder.
6 – Hosting of visiting professors.
7 – Medical capacity building in Senegal.
Sample topics and activities:
- Leadership and Teamwork
- Difficult Conversations: Effective Communication in a Pediatric Hospital
- Case-Based Problems: Introduction to Pediatric Surgical Consults & Emergencies
- Common Patient Care Issues in Pediatric Surgery
Sample topics and activities:
- Leadership and Teamwork Exercise
- Effective Communication in a Pediatric Hospital
- Surviving Fellowship: Trainee perspectives
- Common care issues in pediatric surgery
- Simulation – Procedural Skills
Sample topics and activities:
- Pediatric Communication & Consent
- Common pediatric post-operative complications
- Pediatric post-operative pain management
- Neurodevelopmental issues in pediatric anesthesia
Nearly 40 residents from 8 specialties joined the 2nd edition of the Fundamentals of Surgery bootcamp. The response rate to the satisfaction survey reached 90%.
A detailed survey was created to obtain feedback from the residents, with more than 80% response rate. Feedback was excellent and convinced the boot camp organizers to keep pediatric surgery as a permanent component of this program.