Collaboration in Surgical Training: A Qualitative Study of Mentoring Laparoscopic Surgeons by Using Videoconference in Northern Norway

This paper describes a work in progress, a project studying collaboration among laparoscopic surgeons who are instructed during their education. Access to expert surgeons is a problem at many hospitals. Implementing videoconferencing (VC) as a tool for instruction (telestration) and knowledge-sharing overcomes the distance between mentors and mentees, and has the potential to improve surgical training. Understanding of VC is limited in surgical practice, and the educational and clinical benefits of telementoring should be explored. This project will meet this demand by seeking in-depth understanding of the non-technical aspects or social processes of collaboration in surgical training. Over a three-year period, from 2015 to 2017, this project will examine collaboration in surgical training (CoaST). A hospital in northern Norway at which surgeons collaborate in surgical training to complete their surgical education in general surgery will be investigated. This paper discusses how we will collect the data. When they start to use VC for mentoring in distance surgical training, this will be included. An explorative study will be carried out using video-recorded observations of interactions. The paper is relevant for the conference focusing on the topic of distributed surgery and collaboration between professionals creating new telemedicine practices. This paper outlines the objectives of the study and the qualitative design; the study will explore non-technical aspects or social processes of collaboration in surgical training. The paper concludes by presenting a design for collecting video recordings to explore surgical training.