Maintaining surgical training during COVID-19 and redeployment: experiences from a group of core surgical trainees

There is no doubt that the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted surgical training, with the cancellation of elective operating lists, exams, courses and conferences and redeployment of staff to front-line services. Like many others, as a group of core surgical trainees in plastic surgery we were redeployed, in our case to our local accident and emergency department (ED) for 3½ months. While we recognised the need for this, we were also concerned about the implications that this would have on our surgical training. To maximise our learning opportunities and maintain a degree of surgical training while in redeployment, we formulated a number of strategies. With the threat of a further wave of COVID-19 still looming and the possible need for further redeployment periods, we would like to share our experiences with other trainee surgeons, including the approaches we found effective in providing safe care to our patients while maximising our own learning.\n\nWorking in ED gave us front-line experience of assessing patients. With lockdown do it yourself projects and avocado salads gone awry in addition to numerous sourdough bakery-related burns, there were plenty of patients who presented with common plastic surgery injuries, giving regular practice in assessing wounds and burns and opportunities to keep our suturing skills proficient. Furthermore, our ED consultants took the time to discuss and understand our learning …