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. 2021 Jan-Feb;35(1):1-12.
doi: 10.21873/invivo.12226.

Suturing Skills for Medical Students: A Systematic Review

Thanos Emmanuel #  1 , Marios Nicolaides #  1 , Iakovos Theodoulou  2 , Wai Yoong  3 , Nikolaos Lymperopoulos  4 , Michail Sideris  5
Affiliations

Suturing Skills for Medical Students: A Systematic Review

Thanos Emmanuel et al. In Vivo. 2021 Jan-Feb.

Abstract

Aim: This systematic review aimed to identify all published evidence on teaching suturing skills for medical students. We aimed to outline significant positive teaching outcomes and devise a comprehensive framework for the optimal teaching of suturing skills for medical students.

Materials and methods: We searched MEDLINE® (via Ovid), EMBASE and SCOPUS databases until July 2019 with no language restriction using predefined 'Population, Intervention, Comparison, Outcome (PICO)' criteria. Data were summarised in discrete thematic axes using a qualitative synthesis approach.

Results: Our search yielded a total of 2,562 articles, out of which 25 were included in the final data synthesis. We provide a structured breakdown of educational interventions including participants, instructors and nature of teaching intervention. We also describe discrete means for assessment of performance and retention of suturing skills. Based on those we propose a standardised framework on teaching suturing skills for novices.

Conclusion: To our knowledge this is the first systematic review investigating teaching interventions used to teach suturing skills in medical students. After extraction of individual positive teaching outcomes and utilising widely known learning theories and principles, we devised a comprehensive framework for more efficient and cost-effective teaching of suturing skills to medical students in the future.

Keywords: Suturing skills teaching; basic surgical skills; medical school; medical students; systematic review; undergraduate.

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Conflict of interest statement

The Authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest in regard to this study.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. PRISMA flowchart
Figure 2
Figure 2. Prevalence of evaluative metrics used to measure teaching intervention outcome in the included studies. ICSAD: Imperial College Surgical Assessment Device; OSAT: Objective Structured Assessment of Technical Skills; OSCE: Objective Structured Clinical Examination; FPA: Final Product Analysis
Figure 3
Figure 3. Framework guiding a standardised teaching approach for suturing skills in novice medical students. OSAT: Objective Structured Assessment of Technical Skill; PAL: peer-assisted learning; SBA: single best answer
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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