Developing a Curriculum for Trauma and Orthopaedic Higher Surgical Trainees: Implementing Small Group Teaching in a Regional Programme

Introduction Small group teaching strategies have been considered more efficient than didactic lectures in motivating trainees. There is a lack of studies focusing on the use of small group discussions for higher surgical training. The aims of the current study were to report the implementation of small group teaching and to move away from didactic lectures for a regional trauma and orthopaedics higher surgical trainee teaching programme. Methods Feedback from the teaching sessions was prospectively collected from trainees regarding the delivery of their surgical curriculum and meeting their training needs using formal feedback forms. Twenty-two consecutive regional teaching sessions were included in the analysis, twelve using a variety of teaching methods including didactic lectures, and ten sessions aiming to focus entirely on a small group format. Comparisons were then made between the two teaching formats. Results A weak correlation was found between the teaching feedback scores and the amount of the session comprised of the small group format as per the published schedules (rs = 0.296) and as rated by the trainees (rs = 0.061). There was a statistically significant positive correlation between the proportion of small group format teaching and how useful the trainees rated this for their education (rs = 0.597, p = 0.005). Conclusions The assessment of small group format teaching in higher surgical trainee education has not been previously reported. The current study shows that trauma and orthopaedics higher surgical trainee satisfaction with Fellowship of Royal College of Surgeons (FRCS) curriculum teaching has a significant correlation with a greater proportion of small group format.