The University of California, San Francisco, renowned as one of the most advanced medical centers for surgical treatment, research and teaching, has established an ACS accredited Surgical Skills Center with the objective of improving the standards of surgical practice. Conceived as a model to be replicated at medical centers elsewhere, the Surgical Skills Center applies advanced simulation and virtual reality technologies to the training of surgical residents.
The goal of the Surgical Skills Center is to maximize learning in the operating rooms by allowing trainees to master basic technical skills and practice operative techniques and principles outside of the operating room. We accomplish this by providing a structured and robust curriculum including inanimate and tissue models that simulate challenges that occur to novices in the real operations. To further our mission, the lab supports education research fellowship in teaching, curricular development and research as a pathway to an academic career in surgical education.