Posters
How a Singapore residency programme successfully incorporated simulator training into its cataract training module
Poster Details
First Author: L. Lee SINGAPORE
Co Author(s): S. Wiryasaputra Z. Thng
Abstract Details
Purpose:
To describe how our training programme incorporated simulation training into our cataract training module, and how it uses Posterior Capsule Rupture (PCR) rates and feedback to track the success of the incorporation.
Setting:
National Healthcare Group (NHG) Ophthalmology Residency Programme, at Tan Tock Seng Hospital, a tertiary centre where about 5500 cataract surgeries are performed each year.
Methods:
Our programme purchased an EYESI simulator training machine, and incorporated it into our cataract training module. Cataract surgery training is done in a sequential manner, progressing from extracapsular extraction to phacoemulsification, and we get the residents to successfully complete simulator courses before embarking on phacoemulsification. We then track PCR rates of residents, as well as obtain anonymous feedback from them and trainers asking how useful the simulator was in preparing the residents for various steps of phacoemulsification, to gauge the success of the simulator training.
Results:
Resident PCR rates of between 10.5% and 14.7% have been described in literature. Our rates of 5.5% and 1.93% for junior and senior residents respectively compare very favourably to these. Residents felt that the simulator helped them most with manoeuvring of instruments within the eye, capsulorrhexis, chopping and irrigation & aspiration, while it was not so helpful with understanding phacodynamics, hydrodissection and lens insertion.
Conclusions:
Our residency programme has incorporated simulator training into our cataract training module. There has been positive feedback from both trainers and residents with regard to this new initiative, supported by very favourable PCR rates as compared to those that have been described in literature.
Financial Disclosure:
NONE
