Liverpool Student Doctor shows off surgical skills in virtual competition

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student using virtual surgical equipment interacting with a computer screen
Student Doctor Jaqueline Howard competes in the virtual competition

Student Doctor and aspiring surgeon Jaqueline Howard represented Liverpool School of Medicine this summer as a finalist at the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh (RCSEd) and Medtronic Virtual Surgical Skills Competition.

Jaqueline was in her third year of the MBChB programme when she came across the opportunity to take part in the 2020-2021 virtual competition (link).

“I'm keen to pursue a career in surgery and was already an affiliate member of the RCSEd when I saw they had opened the competition to student doctors across all years as in the past it had only been available to final-year students. I thought I'd try my chances with the initial round.

It was quite exciting as the fact they had made it fully virtual meant students had more access to the event than ever.

The competition progressed in three stages. For round one, everyone completed a knowledge quiz about the College as well as some surgical trivia. In round two, the top ten students from each university were tasked to perform some surgical knot tying and suturing using organlike material and the 'take anywhere' surgical training box, which had all the tools necessary and allowed us to video ourselves performing the tasks. The final round was similar but involved more complex suturing tasks.

A student poses with a lamb-banana sculptureJaqueline poses with a Superlambanana at Wirral Women and Children's Hospital

I really enjoyed the friendly competition between everyone, especially being able to compete with upper year students who I knew through Society teaching events and conferences. It was a huge honour and welcome challenge. It was also great to be able to demonstrate and practice skills which will be useful no matter what facet of medicine we end up in.

To any fellow students interested in surgery, my advice would be to get involved in as much as you can.

University societies such as Surgical Scousers and Surgical Research, and even joining colleges like Edinburgh run frequent events and tasters which can expand your knowledge or show you specialties you'd never have thought of before. And if you find something that sparks your interest, chase it and find people to mentor you as, more often than not, opportunities will be out there waiting for you.”

Jaqueline is currently taking an intercalated MSc degree in Trauma Science at the University of Birmingham before joining us back at the School for year four of her training next year.

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