Taking the Classroom to the Operating Theater

Alfredo C. Cordova, MD 
Surgical Critical Care Fellow at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital  
PGY-6 

12/05/2019

Operating Theater as a classroom for clinical learning 

We are blessed to be in the medical field that allows us to be both students and educators for life. We have a responsibility to share the knowledge that has been passed down to us, not only with our students, but also with patients, nurses, ancillary staff, and colleagues. Participating in the Clinical Teaching Skills Course was a valuable experience that allowed me to learn different teaching skill sets to become a better and more effective clinical educator. It was enriching to interact with peers in different specialties and levels of training, providing me with different perspectives and approaches to teaching.  

As a surgeon, my happy place is the operating room. This is the perfect setting for teaching and learning as you can bring the classroom to the operating theater. The OR is a very controlled environment- the surgeon has control of the noise level and the tone of the conversation or discussion. In a systematic fashion, the patient may serve as an open textbook. Radiological studies and ancillary tests serve as supplemental teaching tools to help elucidate the patient’s condition. Furthermore, the disease process, pathology, workup, treatment options, and surgical management are then dissected.  During the surgical cases, teaching continues regarding operative, technical techniques and anatomy. These maybe reviewed graphically with no better visual aids than the anatomy at hand itself.  The Clinical Teaching Skills Course allowed me to approach teaching in a more systematic way and taught me skill sets that will allow me to be more efficient and effective in the delivery of my teaching. This is a course all trainees should take, ideally early during training so as to help develop clinical teaching skills - teaching is an art and needs to be cultivated.