TY  - JOUR
A1  - Perez-Abadia, Gustavo
A1  - Janko, Maren Carina
A1  - Pindur, Lukas
A1  - Sauerbier, Michael
A1  - Barker, John Howard
A1  - Joshua, Irving
A1  - Marzi, Ingo
A1  - Frank, Johannes
T1  - Frankfurt microsurgery course: the first 175 trainees
T2  - European journal of trauma and emergency surgery
N2  - Introduction: Microsurgery courses, taught external to surgical training programs, are essential for acquiring the high level of technical skill required for clinical proficiency.
Methods: The Frankfurt microsurgery course is a 5-day, intensive course that teaches arterial and venous anastomosis using end-to-end, end-to-side, one-way-up, continuous-suture, and vessel graft techniques. During the course, the instructor records the level of skill (in-course data) achieved by each trainee by assessing anastomosis completion and patency. Demographic information is also collected. Post-course trainees are invited to complete an online survey (post-course data) to get their opinions of the courses’ effectiveness.
Results: The in-course “skill achievement” and post-course “course effectiveness” data are presented below. In-course data: 94.8 and 59.9% of participants completed patent end-to-end arterial and venous anastomoses, respectively, while 85.4% performed a patent end-to-side anastomosis. 96.1 and 57.1% of participants who attempted arterial and venous anastomoses using the one-way-up technique were successful, as were 90.9% of those attempting continuous-suture technique. Patent venous grafts were performed by 54.7% of participants.
Post-course data: All respondents indicated significant improvement of their microsurgical skills after taking the course. 66.7% of respondents considered the full-time presence of the instructor to be the most valuable aspect of the course. All respondents would highly recommend the course to colleagues.
Conclusion: The microcourse significantly increased trainees’ clinical microsurgery skills, confidence, and the number of clinical cases they perform. Of all the anastomosis techniques taught, venous anastomosis and grafting were the most difficult to learn. The presence of a full-time experienced instructor was most important.
KW  - Frankfurt microsurgery course
KW  - Microsurgery
KW  - Training
KW  - Education
KW  - Skills
KW  - Evaluation in microsurgery
Y1  - 2017
UR  - http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/45089
UR  - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-450897
SN  - 1863-9941
SN  - 1863-9933
VL  - 4
IS  - 3
SP  - 377
EP  - 386
ER  -