5 Major Skills for the Future Digital Surgery Trainee
The operating room is filling with software, robots and data, and surgical training has to change with it.
A 2022 report from the Royal College of Surgeons of England and the Association of Surgeons in Training sets out what trainees will need to learn.
The five skills below come directly from that report's conclusions and recommendations.
1. Digital literacy
Digital literacy means using digital tools with confidence and knowing when they actually help.
The commission identified a clear gap in digital literacy and innovation skills among trainees.
It recommends a standardised national digital literacy course for all trainees and trainers.
The practical takeaway is to learn new software on purpose, the same way a new instrument is learned.
2. Understanding AI and its limits
Trainees need the fundamentals of AI and imaging-based diagnostics, including what these tools can and cannot do.
They also need to understand the limits of prognostic models, so a risk score is read as an estimate and not a verdict.
The report adds that trainees should understand bias in AI tools, which can disadvantage under-represented patient groups.
The practical takeaway is to ask what data a tool learned from, and who was missing from that data, before trusting its output.
3. Robotics fundamentals
The report lists a lack of exposure to robotic surgery as an unmet training need.
It calls for a core robotics curriculum, shared across specialties, that takes trainees up to the point of procedure-specific training.
It also asks robotics companies to contribute operative and safety metrics so trainees can be benchmarked.
The practical takeaway is that robotics basics should be learned before procedural training begins, not during it.
For a closer look at how one manufacturer plans to add autonomy to its robots, see the companion report Inside the Stack: Intuitive's Path to Supervised Autonomy.
4. Immersive simulation
The commission concludes that augmented, virtual and mixed reality can offer scalable, on-demand learning environments.
It describes proficiency-based immersive training as a valuable supplement to traditional simulation.
It is equally clear that these tools are adjuncts and that nothing replaces hands-on operating.
The report also warns that many of these tools still lack formal evaluation, so evidence should come before adoption.
5. Reading performance data
Video and image databases could one day work as a virtual logbook that records what a trainee has actually done.
Video analytics and AI may also help guide instrument use, flag procedural steps and detect errors, although the report says more investigation is needed.
The commission wants performance metrics to be standardised, transparent, reproducible and used only with the trainee's consent.
The practical takeaway is that trainees will need to read their own metrics and learning curves, not just collect them.
What this means for trainees
The report's first recommendation is that technology should augment hands-on training and not replace it.
Trainees who build these five skills will be able to judge vendor claims critically, which is where independent verification becomes valuable.
