P67 Integrated surgical teaching for juniors: surgical education during COVID-19

Background COVID-19 has impacted on the amount of formal theoretical and practical surgical teaching available for junior doctors and medical students. This added to an existing climate of variability in the undergraduate and foundation teaching curriculum. Junior doctors were subsequently reporting a lack in confidence when dealing with surgical patients. We aimed to assess the surgical learning needs of junior doctors and designed a quality improvement project that included implementing a surgical teaching programme to improve the quality of surgical education. Methods A baseline questionnaire was completed by foundation year one doctors to establish confidence levels in managing surgical patients and carrying out practical procedures. Two sequential improvement strategies were subsequently implemented and assessed using the Plan-Do-Study-Act methodology. Junior doctors participated in a local surgical workshop in limited numbers during cycle 1, and then attended four online webinar tutorials themed around general surgery for cycle 2. Results A total of 15 participants responded to the baseline questionnaire, 13 attended the workshop and a combined total of 572 viewed the four webinars. Mean confidence increase following the workshop was 113% (W = 91.0, p < 0.001). Mean knowledge increase from the online webinars was 62.3% (t = 4.67, p = 0.009) and mean confidence increase was 66.67% (p < 0.0001). Conclusion Junior doctors did not feel confident in assessing and managing surgically unwell patients. Implementing blended learning tools, such as online webinars, allowed the delivery of effective surgical teaching en masse and to continue the practice of social distancing during a viral pandemic.