Read ACS-AEI Committee Updates

The ACS-AEI committees were revisited in 2022 with the start of a staff-led committee engagement project to re-energize our groups, which have been in place since 2010. AEI committees in late 2022 completed a feedback survey, vetted through the Council of Committee Chairs, which was designed to gain some insight with regards to structure and performance.

During the 2023 Annual Surgical Simulation Summit, an AEI committee booth staffed with committee representatives was also provided for attendees to engage directly with our committee members to learn more about the benefits of participation in a committee and the Consortium, as well as review a committee’s products, services, and activities.

Committee activities are further outlined in the 2023 spring reports below

Administration and Management Committee

In early 2023, the Administration and Management (A&M) Committee welcomed aboard two additional members to the committee’s roster: Eugene Floersch, MPH, CHSE, CHSOS, M Simulation at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, and Kimberly M. Gilmore, MS, RLAT, Temple University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

The committee’s preparation since last spring came to fruition at the 2023 Surgical Simulation Summit, with the A&M Committee conducting two well-received general sessions for all summit attendees.

The first session, Team R.E.S.P.E.C.T., was a panel session designed for interaction with the audience. Concepts of team roles, engagement, satisfaction, professional development, equity, communication, and trust were explored, as the panelists shared lessons learned and best practices in relation to teambuilding from their centers. A Do It Yourself Workshop on Model Building was once again one of the most popular workshop sessions with more than 40 participants who rotated through four common surgical procedure model stations:

• Bowel Anastomosis
• Laparoscopic Abdominal Hernia Repair
• Abdominal Wall Open and Closure
• Abscesses

They were able to reconstruct these models and provided with model recipes to take back at their centers.

The A&M Committee newsletter was released to the Consortium in March. This issue featured a new column, Team Builder Corner, with Senior Consultant Lisa Satterthwaite, RPN, ORT presenting timely information on how the University of Toronto Surgical Skills Centre rolled out continuing education and employment benefits programs, as well as a resiliency training program during the pandemic, to its employees. AEI Senior Manager Cathy Sormalis provided the readership with accreditation tips and tricks to facilitate the ACS-AEI application process. The spring issue also highlighted new Committee Member Cristina Alvarado, MBA, RN, from the University of Toledo, Ohio.

This committee has expressed interest to the VGR Subcommittee with presenting a VGR topic to the consortium in 2023.

For more information on Administration and Management Committee activities, contact Co-Chairs Melinda Klar, RN (mklar@utmck.edu) and Jesika S. Gavilanes, MATESOL (gavilane@ohsu.edu), or Vice-Chair Julie A. Hartman, DC, MS, CCRP (julie-hartman@uiowa.edu).

Curriculum Committee

The Curriculum Committee is in the process of updating its vision and mission statements to ensure that they reflect its domain and workload.

The Curriculum Modules project is progressing after two working group discussions to lay out a proposal for review by ACS Division of Education Director and AEI Council Chair Ajit K. Sachdeva, MD, FACS, FRCSC, FSACME, MAMSE. The modules are in response to the feedback from the Interpersonal and Communication Skills Curriculum: Successfully Engaging Your Patient, Patient’s Family, and Colleagues Toolkit, which indicated AEIs wanted additional content. These modules will focus on the use of simulation to teach residents how to be a teacher.

Committee Member Nehal Khamis, MD, PhD, MHPE, continues to work with the Online Curriculum Development Tool (OCDT) team to finalize the "Simulation-based Curriculum Design Booklet," which is based on the OCDT project guide materials. The team is pleased to report that in addition to the description of each of the steps of curriculum development, a brainstorming questions section, and the simulation-based course design tool, the booklet will include a "Surgical Simulation-based Curriculum Review" questionnaire that Dr. Khamis has developed by adapting a version originally designed by Committee Member Antonio Gangemi, MD, FACS, et al, for curriculum design. This new curriculum review tool is currently in the final review stage by Dr. Gangemi and his team and will be also reviewed by Committee Co-Chair James N. Lau, MD, MHPE, FACS and Past Committee Co-Chair and Consultant Luis E. Llerena, MD, FACS, as co-editors of the booklet with Dr. Khamis. 

The joint 2023 committee workshop with the Faculty Development Committee, Bottoms Up! Integrating Inter-Professional Education into a Health Sciences Center, was facilitated by Faculty Development Past Co-Chair and Consultant John T. Paige, MD, FACS, Drs. Khamis and Lau, and Vice-Chair Gladys L. Fernandez, MD. This session identified unique challenges which educators must overcome and strategies for implementation to assist attendees in developing successful IPE programs within their institution through a bottom-up approach.

For more information on the Curriculum Committee’s activities, contact Co-Chairs James N. Lau (James.Lau@lumc.edu) and Edgardo S. Salcedo (esalcedo@ucdavis.edu), or Gladys L. Fernandez, MD (gladys.fernandezmd@baystatehealth.org)

Faculty Development Committee

The Faculty Development (FD) Committee has been reviewing the data from the 2022 faculty development needs assessment survey to determine how it will proceed with future deliverables. More committee discussion ensued for the FD Committee members during the March mini retreat at the Annual AEI Summit in Chicago.

FD Past Co-Chair and Consultant Nehal Khamis, MD, PhD, MHPE, was finalizing sections of the Online Curriculum Development Tool (OCDT) booklet and working with Curriculum Committee Member Antonio Gangemi, MD, FACS on the review tool for inclusion in the Appendix. The companion to the Six Steps framework utilized in the design of OCDT template will be added to the booklet, as well. The committee will revisit the template’s collection of data in 6 months with Dr. Khamis’s validation of the tool.

The FD Committee offered three committee workshops for the 2023 Summit. 

• The Fun Workshop Competition, where AEI members can enter their FUN and practical tool that can be used by faculty for training using simulation, was won by Jamie M. Robertson, PhD, MPH, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard University, with her presentation, No Monkeying Around: Priming Teams for Simulation Experiences.
• FD Committee Member Areti Tillou, MD, and James Wu, MD, University of California, Los Angeles, facilitated a workshop, Performance Dimension Training for Effective Feedback Based on Direct Observation in Surgical Practice.
• A joint workshop with the Curriculum Committee was also conducted, Bottoms Up! Integrating Inter-Professional Education into a Health Sciences Center, and facilitated by FD Past Co-Chair and Consultant John T. Paige, MD, FACS, Dr. Khamis and Curriculum Committee Co-Chair James N. Lau, MD, MHPE, FACS, and Vice-Chair Gladys L. Fernandez, MD.

Vice-Chair Geoffrey T. Miller, PhD(c), EMT-P, FSSH, is the lead for reviving this committee’s podcast project. The 2022 faculty development needs assessment data has indicated that people are interested in YouTube and podcasts for content delivery. Mr. Miller and staff will be reviewing the requirements to package a podcast series and assisting faculty with creating their content. All committee members will record a talk for the series.

For more information on the FD Committee’s activities, contact Chair Dmitry Nepomnayshy, MD, MSc, FACS (Dmitry.Nepomnayshy@Lahey.org) and Vice-Chair Geoffrey T. Miller, PhD(c), EMT-P, FSSH (gmille71@jhmi.edu).

International Committee

The International Committee held its International Breakfast 2023 Summit. Any AEI that would like to collaborate with the international AEIs will be invited to attend this annual forum. It was a productive meeting that will refresh this committee’s deliverables to promote collaboration and advance research in the Consortium with international participation.

The international Train the Trainer on Hybrid Minimally Invasive Surgery Technology course was conducted in November, and post-course evaluations indicated that it was well-received with a rating of 4.63/5 by its participants. The faculty included Committee Member Mariano E. Gimenez, MD, PhD, FSIR (IRCAD), Past-Chair and Committee Member Evangelos Georgiou, MD, PhD (University of Athens). and Committee Chair Lars Enochsson, MD, PhD (Umeå University and Karolinska Institutet).There was an additional AEI presence with Dimitrios Stefanidis, MD, PhD, FACS, FASMBS (Indiana University) and Robert M. Sweet, MD, FACS (WWAMI-WISH) joining the faculty. The outline of the course included a prerecorded library to view before the online interviews. The library contained e-modalities in non-technical skills. So far, 90 learners had completed the course, and there was a strong showing from South America, Europe, and India.

This committee’s newsletter is scheduled for release this summer. The upcoming issue will spotlight International Committee Consultant and AEI Fellow Yasser A. Noureldin, MD, MSc (Urol), PhD (Urol), Associate Professor of Urology at Benha University Egypt, and Associate Consultant of Urology, King Abdulaziz Medical City, National Guard Health Affairs, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; exchange international AEI information of interest to the consortium in the Awards and Activities column; promote courses and events at international AEIs; and offer direction on how to network and advance the consortium’s research with international AEIs. Look for information requests for this newsletter issue in your inboxes this June.

For more information on International Committee activities, contact Chair Lars Enochsson, MD, PhD (lars.enochsson@umu.se), or Vice-Chair Andrea Moglia, PhD (andrea.moglia@endocas.org)

Research and Development Committee

The Research and Development Committee is advancing projects to develop collaboration among the AEIs, as follows:

National Performance Benchmark Project

The objective of the Benchmark project is to develop technical and non-technical skill performance benchmarks for surgery residents. Boris Zevin, MD, PhD, FRCSC, and R. Eric Heidel, PhD, are leading the efforts on this project on behalf of the Research and Development Committee. Currently, there are five AEIs that will participate in the project. The ACS had received IRB approval from the American Institute for Research (AIR), and each participating site has been applying for local IRB approval from their institutions. Additionally, the leaders of this project and Dimitrios Stefanidis, MD, PhD, FACS, FASMBS, and Gyusung Lee, PhD, used this project to offer a multi-center research collaboration workshop and discussed multi-center research planning, IRB process, and centralized data collection. An invitation to recruit more AEIs to this project was announced at the workshop.

Analysis of AEI Consortium Data Project

The goal of the project is to review and analyze existing AEI data, assess the current state of simulation training across the consortium, and identify best practices. James Lau, MD, MHPE, FACS, and Philip Pucher, MD, PhD, MRCS, of the Research and Development Committee, along with Ashley Hafer, MD, and LaDonna Kearse, MD, have completed their research. A manuscript has been submitted to Global Surgical Education and is waiting for the final decision from the journal’s editorial board.

Committee Leadership

Sharon Muret-Wagstaff, PhD, MPA, recently resigned from the Co-Chair of this committee. The committee is led by Mark Aeder, MD, FACS, and Ganesh Sankaranarayanan, PhD, Vice-Chair.

If you have any questions or would like more information about the Research and Development Committee’s membership and activities, contact the committee Chair Mark Aeder (Mark.Aeder@UHhospitals.org)

Technology and Simulation Committee

The Technology and Simulation Committee is working on developing standards for simulators and assessment instruments.

Development of Simulation Standards for the ACS/APDS Phase 2 Curriculum

The Technology and Simulation Committee continues work on the ACS/APDS Phase 2 Curriculum project. The first goal of the project is to establish standards for simulators that may guide manufacturers to develop better tools that can be used in the ACS/APDS Phase 2 Curriculum training for surgical residents. The second goal is to develop assessment tools that can be used in conjunction with simulators to objectively measure surgical skill performance. The committee has completed creating Cognitive Task Analysis (CTA) documents for the skills contained in Module 10 - Open Repair of Inguinal and Femoral Hernias, and Module 11 - Laparoscopic Inguinal Hernia Repair. A team of surgical educators are reviewing the CTA document to create essential learning goals and assessment tools for each of the learning goals. Once these learning goals and assessment tools are determined, they will go through a consensus to select the top five most important surgical skills to be taught for the specific surgical procedure and the associated assessment tools.

The committee is led by David Hananel, BS, BA, and Gyusung Lee, PhD, Co-Chairs.

If you have any questions or would like more information about the Technology and Simulation Committee’s membership and activities,contact the Co-Chairs, David M. Hananel, BS, BA (dhananel@uw.edu) and Gyusung I. Lee, PhD (glee@facs.org).