EDITORIAL COMMENT

摘要

Modern medical education requires transfer of complex knowledge and skills between experienced practitioners and adult learners. Surgical and other procedural techniques usually require some degree of repetition to achieve mastery at a level sufficient for independent practice. This study examined the learning curve for transrectal ultrasound-guided prostate biopsies, one of the most common diagnostic procedures performed by urologic surgeons. The goal of the study was to determine the number of procedures needed to learn the technique and also to optimize clinical outcomes in terms of specimen quality. Average core length for the biopsies improved over the duration of training, and the authors concluded that a minimum of 12 procedures were necessary to achieve high-quality outcomes for independent practice.