Reflections About Death in the Surgical Simulation Environment

Abstract

To the Editor: Juan finished his general surgery residency 1 year ago and is now specializing in minimally invasive robotic-assisted colorectal surgery. He has already completed an online training module, several in situ training sessions to learn docking, instrument planning, and so on and successfully accomplished the basic and advanced skills training. He has now started a state-of-the-art training program to optimize outcomes and accelerate his learning curve in low anterior rectal resection. He is doing his third complete case following the principles of experiential learning theory, based on active experimentation in an animal laboratory and guided reflection with feedback. After anesthesia was induced, the team placed the robot in the correct position, the trocars were setup, and right and left hemicolectomies were performed with moderate bleeding while sectioning the colon vessels. During anterior resection, the inferior mesenteric vessel ligation was ineffective, causing profuse bleeding. Despite early help from the attending surgeon and excellent collaboration by the team, the animal experienced a cardiac arrest and died. During debriefing immediately after the training session, Juan was both upset and frustrated. “I have devoted so much time to being proficient in this technique that I was not expecting this outcome. Other times I could figure these things out. I am not sure I am going to be able to do this procedure,” he stated. The instructor acknowledged his feelings and, being at the early stages of his learning curve, normalized the situation. On the other hand, the veterinarian, who was taking care of the animal, confirmed the presence of preoperative anemia and a poor response to fluid replacement. Although Juan tried to move on, he finally decided to postpone reflecting on the decisions and technical steps that lead to the situation. In the article, “To die or not to die? A review of simulated death” published in your Journal by Corvetto and Taekman,1 they suggest that it is essential to carefully consider whether to allow death during a training session, as there is still a lack of evidence on whether such a fatal event may affect the student’s learning process and emotions. This is only controllable when using mannequins. When training in simulation laboratories with anesthetized animals, outcomes cannot be fully controlled and unexpected adverse events may happen from a learner’s action or inaction. In the case presented, death was unexpected, and the learner was psychologically impacted and reluctant to reflect on the case. Although there is a lack of evidence in this area, Corvetto and Taekman cite reports that suggest it may make learners feel guilty, lose self-confidence, lose overall long-term interest in simulation as an educational modality, or even decrease their motivation in clinical care. In this case, its occurrence obliterated the discussion of the desired learning outcomes. Nevertheless, the following day, Juan was prepared to talk about what happened and was able to build on and learn from it. We do not know if the stress affected his memory retention and long-term learning. We are not aware of any report of posttraumatic stress disorder from simulation; posttraumatic stress disorder is commonly related to overwhelming life experiences that threaten a person’s life. On the other hand, several findings minimize the possibility of significant psychological effects and distraction from the learning objectives.1 In our center, during 2012, 237 professionals (123 surgeons, 74 surgical residents, and 40 operating room nurses) were trained on 210 swine. Death occurred in 12% of the cases, especially in long and complex procedures.2 Participants typically feel frustrated and sad. They process emotions normally and are able to analyze the situation and generalize to everyday practice. Intense responses are not frequent, and the reaction Juan experienced was the only one found during that year. We ar