Coaching Orthopaedic Surgeons: Can Visiting Professors be a Valuable Surgical Coach?
Much has been discussed about coaching on different fields and medical training has
not been left aside. Atul Gawande’s article in The New Yorker back in 2002 was
an eye opener for many regarding the fact that surgeons need and should
be constantly coached.
These educational trials have demonstrated that the quality of a teacher
has the biggest impact in how much students can learn and other variables
such as class size or types of testing are not as influential in the ability to learn.
In an educational trial authors gave verbal instructions to a group
of teachers and found that only 10% of teachers used the new skill.
We believe that a very efficient way of instituting and achieving surgical
coaching sessions could be to utilize visiting professors such as in our case
example, as coaches.
In our orthopaedic academic environment it is not uncommon
to have a visiting professor for Grand Rounds on a weekly
basis and reports have demonstrated their
effectiveness.
The American Academy of Pediatrics in the area of
Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder
13 and other groups have found positive results after including team
coaching as part of their quality improvement initiatives.
We believe that a very efficient way of instituting and achieving surgical
coaching sessions could be to utilize visiting professors such
as in our case example, as coaches.
In our orthopaedic academic environment it is not uncommon to have
a visiting professor for Grand Rounds on a weekly basis and reports
have demonstrated their effectiveness.
Orthop Res Traumatol Open J. 2015; 1(1): e1-e4. doi: 10.17140/ORTOJ-1-e001
