Surgical education – online or on-site? A single-center survey of German medical students

Introduction Education as a whole has undergone a remarkable amount of change in the last 100 years. The age of digitalization had a considerable influence on education, providing new media and new techniques to convey content. Not only technical changes have had an impact on education but also scientific findings about how we learn effectively. Surgical education is no exception here and it should be considered that our teachers learned in a different way than medical students and junior residents do today. The international COVID-19 pandemic has boosted the use of digital media due to necessary social distancing measures. After reintroduction of teaching on-site opinions on the necessity of the digital teaching contents appeared to diverge between students and teachers. This representative survey aimed to highlight the “needs” and “wants” of German medical students and to analyze the use of digital teaching media in our institute. Material and Method We performed a survey using Lime Survey including students of human medicine of the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Germany. Students were asked about their use of online materials provided to them and what kind of courses they preferred for different aspects of surgical education and why. They were also asked what aspects of teaching they missed most during social distancing. Furthermore, we analyzed the use of online content created by our institute over three semesters (summer semester 2023 – summer semester 2024). Results 481 students answered the survey the majority of which were female (n = 345, 71.7%) and were in the clinical part of their studies (n = 300, 62.4%). Students by a vast majority preferred practical courses as on-site teaching, i.e. studying surgical sutures (n(completely prefer and mostly prefer on-site) = 342, 71.1%) and lectures as online classes (n(completely prefer and mostly prefer online) = 363, 75.5%). Responses were mixed regarding seminars (n(completely prefer online) = 98, 20.4%, n(completely prefer on-site) = 158, 32.9%). While attendance in the facultative lecture was comparatively low (0 to 10 students per lecture), use of online lectures was satisfactory with a median of 53 views per semester (SD 32.355, n(min) = 10, n(max) = 169). Discussion A combination of teaching in person and using digital media facilitates efficient learning for students as well as sustainable use of time for teachers. While theoretical classes like lectures lend themselves to online teaching, practical classes should be taught in person. The use of online and on-site teaching should be evaluated for every course and a mindful balance should be the overall goal.