Simulation based team training in surgery - a review.

The healthcare environment in surgery is complex, dynamic and often ambiguous. Besides subject knowledge and technical skills, other competencies, such as team work, communication skills and situation awareness, are required to ensure better patient-related outcome. Teams that demonstrate poor non-technical skills make more technical errors, often resulting in patient morbidity or mortality. Different hospital-based locations, such as operating rooms, intensive care units, emergency rooms and surgical wards, are the areas where poor team dynamics prevail. Simulation-based team training is a strategy to provide inter-professional training and experiential learning opportunities for surgeons, anaesthetists and allied health professionals. It helps them to effectively respond in complex situations in complex surgical environment. Simulation-based team training has 3 components; didactics, simulation itself, and debriefing. Literature has shown that simulation-based team training in surgery improves identification of team-based behaviours, improves team performance and overall patient safety.