ABSTRACT
The changing patterns of healthcare delivery, greater accountability and shorter working hours have reduced training opportunities and experience. The mushrooming developments in technology have pervaded the orbit of surgery profoundly. These new techniques require the psychomotor skills of a nature not previously encountered. While minimally invasive surgery is a big boon to the patient, it is more demanding on the surgeon. Surgeons who had been practising before the endoscopic era had to acquire new skills for performing these new procedures to stay updated. Similarly, microsurgery has magnified and widened the choices of surgical treatments, as, lately, has robotics. Each advance in surgical technology has raised a distinctive interface between the operating surgeon and the patient’s anatomy. The introduction of a new technique is followed by waves of learning curves, since new modalities change the dimensions of interface between the surgeon and the patient. This process can be stressful since the operating theatre does not make for an environment conducive to acquiring new skills of this nature. In fact, a significantly reduced potential for learning in the theatre environment is what an inexperienced surgeon is likely to find. A surgeon whose skills are limited and who is not well versed in the operating team dynamics is likely to feel very stressed.
