Introduction: Teaching medicine is a specific task consisting of transferring current medical knowledge and rules of medical practice to students. Teaching surgery traditionally includes acquiring manual skills. This article touches several issues concerning surgical education (curriculum) in the course of medical studies. Attention was paid to the specificity of operative room experience, risk of intimidation, anxiety provocation, and potential benefits. The factors which motivate surgeons to engage in teaching students were discussed.
Conclusions: It was noticed that the range and methods of transferring medical knowledge during medical studies (the curriculum) frequently does not comply with the requirements of future medical practice. The usefulness of frequent everyday testing of acquired knowledge was emphasised. Unreasonable hopes relevant to the introduction of novel techniques of teaching medicine in training centres with skills learning on dummies and simulators were questioned. The importance of ward-round sand simple manual skills teaching was emphasised.
