WS9 - 08: TEACH RESIDENTS TO MAKE THEIR AVERAGE PERFORMANCE EXCELLENT: OPTIMIZING TRAINEESâ PERFORMANCE THROUGH MENTAL SKILLS TRAINING
Nicholas Anton, MS, Dimitrios Stefanidis; Indiana University School of Medicine
Excessive stress has been recognized as a barrier to surgical performance. In a recent survey to identify the impact of surgeons’ stress, 40% of responding surgeons reported that they had witnessed an intraoperative error that was the direct result of the primary surgeon’s stress level. Residents may be particularly vulnerable to increased stress, as they are unlikely to have developed stress coping skills due to their inexperience.
Mental skills curricula (MSC), which consist of psychological techniques enabling performers to perform consistently high in spite of potential barriers (e.g., stress, loss of focus, etc.), have been implemented successfully in various high-stress domains outside of surgery. Recent research suggests that mental skills curricula can enable surgical trainees to perform superiorly to controls during stressful clinical situations.
This workshop will focus on identifying the cognitive barriers to residents’ performance, and providing faculty with effective strategies to teach surgical residents how to optimize their performance during difficult situations. Participants will engage in applied practice of mental skills during the workshop, and collaboratively identify how to integrate mental skills in resident education at their institution. The ultimate goal of this workshop is to provide faculty with effective tools to be taught immediately upon returning to their institutions.
The learning objectives are for participants to be able to:
1. Identify the barriers to residents’ surgical performance
2. Describe the benefits of implementing mental skills training with residents
3. Acquire techniques that can be taught to residents to optimize their performance under challenging clinical conditions
4. Collaboratively identify the possible integration of these skills in surgical training to maximize resident learning
Outline:
• Identify the mental barriers to performance and how they impact inexperienced surgeons’ learning and performance
• Efficacy of mental skills training
• Rationale for integrating mental skills training during residency
• Introduction to several techniques featured in the mental skills curriculum developed and implemented at our institution
• Applied practice of mental skills in a group setting and discussion of how they can be optimally applied during surgery
• Identify how to effectively teach these skills to residents at participants’ respective institutions
• Discussion