PLEASE NOTE: All BSS applicants must also register with the RCS. Please follow the link below:

https://www.rcseng.ac.uk/

Aimed at FY1-CT2, this 2 day course has been designed to introduce surgical trainees to safe surgical practice within a controlled workshop environment and it aims to teach, assess and certify the ability of trainees to use safe and sound surgical techniques that are common to all forms of surgery.

The Basic Surgical Skills (BSS) course is strongly recommended for all surgical trainees who take up their first surgical appointment and is open to foundation doctors intending a surgical career or surgically related career.

The course has been agreed on an intercollegiate basis and trainees who complete the course will be issued with certification that will be reciprocally recognised by all four Royal Surgical Colleges.

Course Content

Open surgery

By the end of the course participants will:

• Understand and practise safe operating techniques, gowning and gloving.
• Understand and practice the correct techniques for laying safe surgical knots.
• Understand the characteristics and handling of surgical instruments.
• Understand that careful and sound aspects of technique are more important than simple manual dexterity or speed.
• Understand the principles of handling tissues and recognise differing requirements for differing sites, e.g. skin, bowel, abdominal wall, vessels and tendons.
• Understand and practice local anesthetic techniques.
• Understand the principles of assessment and primary surgical management of infected and contaminated soft tissues

Electrosurgery

By the end of the course participants will understand the principles behind the practical and safe use of electrosurgery devices.

Endoscopic surgery

By the end of the course participants will:

• Understand the differences between open and endoscopic surgery including the manipulation of instruments in a three-dimensional surgical environment while viewing a remote two-dimensional image.
• Practice visuospatial awareness involved in depth cueing and the ‘fulcrum’ effect of instrument manipulation

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