How to do it: Teaching surgical skills to medical undergraduates

Medical students must be capable of performing clinical and surgical procedures in outpatient care and initial emergency care in all stages of the biological cycle. Here, we describe the surgical skills schedule with different animal models fulfilled at the Municipal University of São Caetano do Sul (USCS) Medical School, São Caetano do Sul, SP, Brazil, during the surgical abilities module. We retrospectively reviewed the surgical abilities module schedule provided at the USCS Medical School from 2015 until 2020; in this paper, we describe the use of different animal models. The activities were developed for two semesters during medical school and included an ox tongue, cylindrical Styrofoam, chicken leg and neck, live rabbits, and pigs. Practical surgical teaching starts with sutures using the ox tongue, after which students are taught to perform tenorrhaphy using cylindrical Styrofoam and chicken legs, followed by vascular anastomosis using the chicken trachea and esophagus. Rabbits are appropriate for training a variety of procedures such as cystostomy, gastrostomy, and appendectomy. Pigs allow for the simulation of several types of procedures such as chest drainage. Surgical training for medical undergraduates was demonstrated with an evolutionary intent, starting with simple sutures and ending up with basic emergency room surgical procedures.