Center for Surgical Training and Research

The Center for Surgical Training and Research (CSTAR) is a community of educational scholars conducting research in teaching, learning, assessment, curriculum (including simulation), and the learning environment. In addition, ours is one of few centers in the country working at the intersection of surgical education and health services research, with a particular focus on influencing international medical education policy. Based in a multidisciplinary and collaborative approach, we are translating our research into system-wide changes.

Our ultimate goal is to improve surgical training in order to improve surgeon performance and, by extension, the care of surgical patients.

The Center for Surgical Training and Research (CSTAR) is investigating the science behind assessment, teaching, and educational policy. We address these critical activities through rigorous methods to ultimately help establish national and international best practices.

We take a highly multidisciplinary approach, drawing on work in many areas, including health services research, simulation, education, cognitive psychology, anthropology, econometrics, data science and engineering.

We explore research in a wide variety of training-related fields, including:

• Assessment of teaching and learning in the operating room
• Connecting assessment outcomes with patient outcomes
• Using simulation to accelerate learning
• Culture and leadership development
• Demonstration of trust and entrustable behaviors
• Learning curves for core procedures
• Implementation of a precision educational system