Do orthopaedic fracture skills courses improve resident performance?

Introduction: We hypothesized that resident participation in a hands-on fracture fixation course leads to significant improvement in their performance as assessed in a simulated fracture fixation model.

Methods: Twenty-three junior orthopaedic surgery residents were tasked to treat radial shaft fractures with standard fixation techniques in a sawbones fracture fixation simulation twice during the year. Before the first simulation, 6 of the residents participated in a fraction fixation skills course.