A Surgical Simulation Curriculum for Senior Medical Students Based on TeamSTEPPS

Objective: To investigate whether the existing Team Strategies and Tools to Enhance Performance and Patient Safety (TeamSTEPPS) curriculum can effectively teach senior medical students team skills. Design: Single-group preintervention and postintervention study. Setting and Intervention: We integrated a TeamSTEPPS module into our existing resident readiness elective. The curriculum included interactive didactic sessions, discussion groups, role-plays, and videotaped immersive simulation scenarios. Main Outcome Measures: Improvement of self-assessment scores, multiple-choice examination scores, and performance ratings of videotaped simulation scenarios before and after intervention. The videos were rated by masked reviewers on the basis of a global rating instrument (TeamSTEPPS) and a more detailed nontechnical skills evaluation tool (NOTECHS). Participants: Seventeen students participated and completed the study. Results: The self-evaluation scores improved from 12.76 to 16.06 (P < .001). The increase was significant for all of the TeamSTEPPS competencies and highest for leadership skills (from 2.2 to 3.2; P < .001). The multiple-choice score rose from 84.9% to 94.1% (P < .01). The postintervention video ratings were significantly higher for both instruments (TeamSTEPPS, from 2.99 to 3.56; P < .01; and NOTECHS, from 4.07 to 4.59; P < .001). Conclusions: The curriculum led to improved self-evaluation and multiple-choice scores as well as improved team skills during simulated immersive patient encounters. The TeamSTEPPS framework may be suitable for teaching medical students teamwork concepts and improving their competencies. Larger studies using this framework should be considered to further evaluate the generalizability of our results and the effectiveness of TeamSTEPPS for medical students.