Design and development of a surgical skills simulation curriculum.

Background: A number of significant changes have forced surgical educators to re-evaluate the adequacy of traditional forms of surgical skills training.

Materials: A review of the literature reveals that surgical simulation has emerged as a useful adjunct to help educators adjust to the demands of an ever-changing surgical practice environment. As such, integration of simulation technology into a busy surgical training program has now become a priority for training programs worldwide.

Results: Successful integration requires a disciplined and dedicated approach to the appropriate use of all forms of available simulation in a well-designed curriculum.

Conclusion: This manuscript provides a discussion of how this can be achieved using a sequential, modular, criterion-based framework, providing details of the rationale behind such an approach and current examples of how it can be integrated.