Objective

Complications of cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) are rare but life-threatening events which need prompt and rehearsed actions involving a team. This is not adequately taught to cardiothoracic surgical trainees. The objective of this study was to assess the ability of cardiothoracic trainees to manage these events after simulation-based versus lecture-based teaching.

Methods

17 cardiac surgical trainees with no formal teaching in intraoperative complications of CPB management were randomly assigned to either a study group receiving simulation-based complications of CPB teaching via the Orpheus simulator (n=9) or a control group receiving the teaching via a lecture (n=8). Each subject undertook 20 MCQs on complications of CPB before and after teaching. Trainees were then asked to rate their satisfaction with each session from 1 to 5, with 5 being most satisfied.

Results

There was no significant difference in the pre-test scores between the two groups (p=0.29). After teaching, both groups showed a statistically significant improvement in their knowledge (p<0.05). The trainees in the simulation group performed better than the lecture based group, however this was not statistically significant (p=0.21). Satisfaction levels in both the lecture session and the simulation session were very high with means of 4.4/5 and 4.8/5 respectively.

Conclusion

Despite the familiarity with CPB during surgery, the simulation group performed at least as well as the lecture group. Cardiothoracic trainees will benefit from formal teaching of complications of CPB management via either learning modality being incorporated into their training.