Invited Commentary.—Sharma and co-authors make some interesting observations on the article by Shaked et al.
Like Dr Sharma and his colleagues, I am totally supportive of the opinion that surgical residents should be properly trained in a graduated fashion, painstaking and stepwise, until the mentor has prepared the neophyte for carrying out surgery on his or her own. Residents should not commence the performance of consequential surgery until they can demonstrate a reasonable knowledge of anatomy and are conversant with physiologic care of patients. A sound knowledge of wounds and their healing should have been obtained before operative surgery is commenced.
A number of intraoperative tests may be used to evaluate progress of a resident as a surgeon. Their validity, however, needs to be carefully established before they become holy writ. In my view, when a resident has met the preliminary criteria already outlined and can open and close