Location and context of the bootcamp

The bootcamp “teaching module” set up within the operating theatre for final year medical students” (called “UETB”) took place after the written exams of the sixth and final year of medical school, a few months before students select their future speciality for residency (20 to 23 December 2023). Residency in France starts on 1st November after the last medical school year, and each internship lasts six months (e.g., from November to April or from May to October). Students that took part in the UETB in December 2023 will commence their speciality internship in November 2024. The workshops and classes were spread out over three days. The UETB programme was coordinated by one anaesthetist and two surgeons (two professors and one associate professor). Teaching was multidisciplinary and included the participation of one or more members of the following teams: the Department of Anaesthesiology including a Nurse Anaesthetist, Digestive Surgery, Paediatric Surgery, Orthopaedic Surgery, the Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) Team, the Emergency Department and a member from the Operating Theatre Nurse Team. The UETB had access to the premises and infrastructures of the Toulouse Institute of Health Simulation Centre (ITSIMS) located at the Toulouse Purpan University Hospital site. This teaching module was non-compulsory and therefore subject to registration by students in their sixth and final year of Toulouse University Hospital Medical School.

Skills station

The skills stations included the first actions performed by basic phase surgical and anaesthesiologist interns. The goal of the practical workshops was to reproduce the different sequences and steps of patient management within the operating theatre (Table 2). This provided students with hands-on experience of the first steps to be taken in the operating theatre, such as sterile draping, fixing a drain or a central venous line as well as suturing.

A surgical session was also organised across four separate theatres over four hours. Students were divided into three groups of 15 and one group of 14. Each group spent one hour in the practical workshops. At the end of each one-hour session, students moved from one theatre to another. Each workshop was supervised by two specialist teaching surgeons. The workshops were as follows (descriptions are available on Supplemental Data):

Suture and drain fixation with dedicated equipment;

Microsurgery demonstrated in a practical workshop with dedicated equipment;

Arthroscopy performed on a special simulator device (ARTHRO Mentor ®) and athro-trainer;

Laparoscopy executed on a special simulator device (LAP Mentor ®) and pelvic-trainer.

An IPC workshop dedicated to the prevention of surgical site infections, supervised and taught by an IPC practitioner, covered all the steps and rules of asepsis from the operating changing theatre through to the application of sterile surgical drapes: surgical hand washing, rules for applying surgical drapes, rules for moving around the operating theatre and rules for skin preparation.

Theory courses

The theoretical part was organised in 1 h to 1 h 30 min presentations. The lessons were articulated according to the pedagogical objectives set for the UETB. For the skills stations, each lesson was focused on taking up future functions. Each presentation included time for free discussion with the surgeon or anaesthetist lecturers. These informal discussions enabled students to freely exchange ideas and ask any questions they might have about their future practice. The list of courses and the pedagogical objectives inherent to each are detailed in Table 2.

Participant questionnaire and feedback

At the beginning and end of the UETB, a questionnaire with a Likert scale was completed by the students (the questions are detailed in Figs. 1, 2, 3 and 4). The aim was to assess perceptions of the OT profession and measure the impact of the bootcamp on students' motivation to pursue an OT speciality. The participant questionnaire was created using a likert scale-based methodology [8,9,10]. A 5-level model was chosen with 4 explored areas: the student's interest in the profession; the impact of the bootcamp on his or her opinion; the bootcamp impact on knowledge of the profession and on the conditions of practice. The design of the scale involved a panel of local multidisciplinary experts and a panel of local students to validate the items and their understanding. In addition, feedback was collected from the learners at the end of the UETB; firstly, through a discussion with the supervisors and then in a standardised way via Likert scale questionnaire. Finally, to complete the end-of-bootcamp feedback, we asked students to enter two words to find out what the operating theatre specialities meant to them. The data collection was performed according to the MR-004 methodology and the requirement of the French Data Protection Authority (CNIL), to which the Toulouse University Hospital has signed up. The consent that was obtained from all of the participants was informed. All participants gave their consent to participate in the study via email, again verbally and in writing on the questionnaires at the start of the interview, with the possibility to withdraw at any time [11].

Fig. 1

Test Scores of Each Component Before and After Participation in the Bootcamp. Abbreviation: *: Statistically Significant (p < 0.05); ns: Statistically Not Significant (p > 0.05). Test Score Result About Interest in Surgical Speciality Before and After Bootcamp: Each scale is as follows: 1 Very Uninteresting/3 Neutral/5 Very Interesting. A All Students B Students Previously Interested in a Surgical Career C Students Not Previously Interested in a Career in Surgery D Students who are do not have a baseline interest in a career in surgery and/or anesthesiology

Fig. 2

Test Scores of Each Component Before and After Participation in the Bootcamp. Abbreviation: *: Statistically Significant (p< 0.05); ns: Statistically Not Significant (p>0.05). Test Score Result About Interest in Anaesthesia and Intensive Care Speciality Before and After Bootcamp: Each scale is as follows: 1 Very Uninteresting/3 Neutral/5 Very Interesting. A All Students B Students Previously Interested in an Anaesthesia and Intensive Care Career C Students Not Previously Interested in a Career in Anaesthesia and Intensive Care D Students who are do not have a baseline interest in a career in surgery and/or anesthesiology

Fig. 3

Test Scores of Each Component Before and After Participation in the Bootcamp. Abbreviation: *: Statistically Significant (p< 0.05); ns: Statistically Not Significant (p>0.05). Answer to the Question: Do You Think This Seminar Can Help You with Your Choices? Scale is as follows: 1 Very Unhelpful/3 Somewhat Helpful/5 Very Helpful. A All students B Students Previously Interested in an Anaesthesia and Intensive Care Career C Students Previously Interested in a Surgical Career D Students who are do not have a baseline interest in a career in surgery and/or anesthesiology

Fig. 4

Test Scores of Each Component Before and After Participation in the Bootcamp. Abbreviation: *: Statistically Significant (p< 0.05); ns: Statistically Not Significant (p>0.05). Answer to the Question: Do You Think That Work-Life Balance Is Difficult in the Surgical, Anaesthesia and Intensive Care Specialities? Scale is as follows: 1 Not at All /3 Moderately/5 Yes, Extremely. A All Students B Students Previously Interested in an Anaesthesia and Intensive Care Career C Students Previously Interested in a Surgical Career D Students who are do not have a baseline interest in a career in surgery and/or anesthesiology

Statistical analysis

The Fisher test was used to compare the test results from the pre- and post-questionnaire. Data were analyzed with standard statistical tools using GraphPad-Prism 9.1.2 (225) software (GraphPad Software Inc. San Diego, CA, USA). A p-value < 0.05 was considered significant.