Suturing Skills for Medical Students: A Systematic Review

Aim: This systematic review aimed to identify all published evidence on teaching suturing skills for medical students. We aimed to outline significant positive teaching outcomes and devise a comprehensive framework for the optimal teaching of suturing skills for medical students.

Materials and methods: We searched MEDLINE^® (via Ovid), EMBASE and SCOPUS databases until July 2019 with no language restriction using predefined 'Population, Intervention, Comparison, Outcome (PICO)' criteria. Data were summarised in discrete thematic axes using a qualitative synthesis approach.

Results: Our search yielded a total of 2,562 articles, out of which 25 were included in the final data synthesis. We provide a structured breakdown of educational interventions including participants, instructors and nature of teaching intervention. We also describe discrete means for assessment of performance and retention of suturing skills. Based on those we propose a standardised framework on teaching suturing skills for novices.

Conclusion: To our knowledge this is the first systematic review investigating teaching interventions used to teach suturing skills in medical students. After extraction of individual positive teaching outcomes and utilising widely known learning theories and principles, we devised a comprehensive framework for more efficient and cost-effective teaching of suturing skills to medical students in the future.