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Last year’s RCSEd and Medtronic Surgical Skills Competition built on the success of the 2022 event, in which an incredible 1,400 medical students took part. The 2023 skills competition attracted 1,308 students representing every medical school across the UK – what an amazing achievement. We were incredibly grateful to Medtronic, once again, for sponsoring the competition.

Box clever

To start, the students registered and took part in a quiz. The bonus element of taking part is that the students can become Affiliate Members of the College for free.

The five students with the highest marks were then sent a surgical skills box – a total of 255 skills boxes were sent out across the UK. The box is made from sustainable wood, and contains surgical instruments, sutures, hydrogel human-like tissue (bowel and skin) and a jig to hold a mobile phone. The students had access to skills videos hosted by the College, and were asked to learn and rehearse a range of suturing tasks.

A winner was chosen from each medical school, who was then invited to the College in Edinburgh for the grand finale. A group of 38 students travelled to Edinburgh on 14 April to compete in the final, which included some exciting new elements.

There were 10 stations. Four involved performing skin suturing techniques; two tested essential laparoscopic skills; and a ‘fun’ station, to test fine motor control, involved the classic game Operation. Surface anatomy knowledge was tested on live Edinburgh University medical student models and then students were asked to name basic surgical instruments.

For the first time we introduced an orthopaedic skills station. Students were asked to place pins into pre-drilled saw-bones and then assemble, with guidance, an external fixator frame.

Watch this space

This year’s competition is in full swing, with 1,100 students signed up. Like last year, we sent out a quiz to the students to narrow them down to the top five students from each medical school; 205 students were sent our re-worked skill kit, which contained medical instruments, sutures and hydrogel human-like tissue. Along with this, a phone stand and information packs containing QR codes were provided to take the students directly to a new surgical skills web page, which has information and answers to questions.

We are currently in the second phase of the competition and look forward to welcoming our 43 finalists to Edinburgh for the grand final on 16 March.