E194 - The Future of Surgical Textbooks: A Conversation with Tanner Schrank from the Journal of Medical Insight

In 2013, when I was a medical student, I wrote an essay entitled, #nomoretextbooks? for the Canadian Undergraduate Surgical Education Committee essay competition. In the essay I wrote, “Tomorrow, I start my vascular surgery rotation. Before bed tonight, I will watch a YouTube video of a femoral-popliteal bypass surgery, review the surgical anatomy from Zollinger’s Atlas of Surgical Operations on my iPad while waiting for my car tires to be changed, listen to a podcast on peripheral vascular disease while riding my exercise bike, and perhaps tweet about my new rotation.” At the time, I really felt strongly that the future of surgical textbooks would be virtual. To explore that future, I spoke with Tanner Schrank, the head of impact for the Journal of Medical Insight (also called JOMI). JOMI is a website that showcases a wide range of operations across multiple disciplines. What I really like about JOMI is the in-depth interviews that are done with surgeons before the operation, where the surgeon will describe their thought process and indications for the operation. The videos are also extraordinarily well filmed, often from multiple camera angles and with great detail. JOMI clearly offers a fantastic resource for residents and attendings to learn new surgical techniques.Tanner and I discuss the implications for a transition to a “virtual” textbook that is more reliant on video than an actual written textbook. I must caveat this episode by saying that I think there is pretty good evidence that reading something and actively trying to absorb information is more effective than passively viewing it. In other words, I am not totally convinced that you can effectively learn something by passively watching video. I think it’s important, especially for trainees, to learn actively.  As the great expert on performance, Anders Ericsson said, deliberate practice, not just practice, is required to really acquire mastery. However, there is no question in my mind that video needs to augment the learning that we do as surgeons. At Queen’s, we use video review on a weekly basis to give residents and fellows feedback on how they can improve their technique. We would love to hear your thoughts. Do you think videos are the way of the future for surgical textbooks? Shoot us an email at [email protected]. Links:AMBOSS: Beyond the Textbook: amboss.com/int/internationalpodcastJOMI: https://jomi.com/#nomoretextbooks: https://www.canjsurg.ca/content/57/4/E119