Center for Surgical Training and Research

Creating the Center for Surgical Training and Research

Changes to resident requirements, innovations in data collection, and evolving regulations combine to provide opportunities to produce new knowledge and improve our current surgical training system. In early 2018, the decision was made to formalize the innovative surgical education research work at Michigan. A working group was formed, led by Drs. Gurjit Sandhu and Brian George, that included Paul Gauger, MD, David Hughes, MD, Jill Cherry, MD, MS and Rishi Reddy, MD and Greg Wnuk, MHSA. This group developed the formalized proposal for the group that became the Center for Surgical Training and Research (C-STAR). C-STAR aims to create a community of surgical education researchers who come together to bring out the best in high-impact research, mentorship, and educational quality improvement. C-STAR is working towards this in part through research in multiple domains including: competency-based medical education (CBME), trainee assessment, diversity, equity, and inclusion research, autonomy, entrustment, and many other domains.

C-STAR Fellowship

With the formation of C-STAR, the Michigan Medicine Department of Surgery is also supporting a surgical education research fellowship. The research fellowship will be open to surgical trainees who are looking to make an impact in surgical education. Fellows will spend 1 year working with C-STAR faculty to complete, present, and publish research and prepare them for their future as innovative surgical education researchers. C-STAR also hosts bi-weekly workshops that aim to improve educational research grants, presentations, manuscripts, and more. For more information, email [email protected].

Looking to the Future: the 2019 Surgical Education Symposium

On February 22nd, 2019 the Michigan Medicine Department of Surgery Center for Surgical Training and Research hosted the second annual Surgical Education Symposium. This year’s symposium was the first that was open to surgeons, trainees, and educators outside of the University of Michigan. A total of 60 participants from 8 surgical specialties and 4 institutions participated. In addition to highlighting the innovative surgical education work happening at Michigan Medicine, a workshop on challenging the mindsets that are brought to surgical education was hosted by Janet Dombrowski, a C-STAR Advisory Board Member. Fellow Advisory Board Member Dr. Glenn Regehr, director of the University of British Columbia’s Center for Healthcare Education Scholarship, also gave a keynote presentation that examined the logic of competency-based medical education, one of the hottest topics in surgical education.

Be on the lookout for a save-the-date for the 2020 symposium, as we work to help all surgeons become better teachers, learners, and researchers. For more information or to join the C-STAR mailing list, please email [email protected].

Article by Brian George, MD (Twitter: @bcgeorge) and Greg Wnuk, MHSA