19/02/2019
How stress can affect performance. It can be a good lesson for our education system.
Sᴛʀᴇꜱꜱ-Fʀᴇᴇ Tʀᴀɪɴɪɴɢ Eɴʜᴀɴᴄᴇꜱ Sᴜʀɢɪᴄᴀʟ Sᴋɪʟʟ
The Computational Physiology Lab in collaboration with the Institute of Reconstructive Surgery Houston Methodist published a new paper in Scientific Reports regarding the transformative role of stress free environments in . In this study, young medical students who took surgical training as a hobby attained competency in record time. This was in contradistinction to slow training progress by stressed out surgical residents reported in an earlier study.
Stress precipitates fight or flight responses that prompt fast and awkward motions, resulting into a multitude of errors in practicing surgical drills. This in turn leads to more stress, throwing trainees into a vicious cycle the authors term `sympathetic looping'. The absence of stressful conditions arrests sympathetic looping, facilitating dexterous skill acquisition.
Based on these two research results and the proliferation of surgical simulators, the authors propose to render dexterous training an extracurricular activity for aspiring surgeons, long before they enter stressful surgical residency programs.
The publication related to the present study can be accessed at:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-38727-z
The outreach page for this research can be accessed at:
http://cpl.uh.edu/projects/stress-studies/ds/dss.php
The publication related to the earlier study can be accessed at:
https://www.nature.com/articles/srep00305
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