Background:

Learning complex tasks in surgical requires the coordination and integration of technical and non-technical skills have an impact on the performance of work teams.

Objective:

The aim of this study is to report the results of a simulation-based educational strategy for training in complex surgical skills considering the participants’ perceptions.

Material and methods:

In 2019, 10 healthcare professionals participated in a 20-hour course divided in 6 hours of online training and 14 hours of onsite training. The strategy designed included the inte gration of case resolution activities, role-playing, practice with synthetic and virtual simulators and high-fidelity simulation. At the end of the course, a questionnaire was administered to explore partici pants’ perceptions on what they had learned and on their attitude changes.

Results:

Fifty percent of the participants perceived their skills and knowledge improved at the end of the course compared with their perception at the beginning of the course while 80% perceived the impact of the course on their professional activity was good or excellent. All the participants agreed with the need for improving non-technical skills. The experience was rated as positive or very positive by all participants, who were eager to repeat it.

Conclusion:

The participants’ perceptions of this educational program demonstrates that this method is highly accepted. Raising awareness of non-technical skills during the reflection stage suggests the need for changes in attitude and in self-perception of efficacy. We believe that simulation-based tra ining offers the possibility of improving the overall performance of the surgical team. Future studies should focus on this goal.

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