Fostering Authenticity in Surgical Education: Creating a Safe Space for Medical Students to Practice as Doctors

Over the past 10 years we have witnessed major changes to the medical education landscape in response to advan-ces in digital technologies. Couple this with the disruptions imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic and we have what could be described as a 'perfect storm.' Rather than hunker down and wait for it to pass, we took it as an opportunity to re-evaluate how we practice surgical education in the fourth year of our 6 year medical programme. In this arti-cle, we describe the formation of 6 core principles that function as pivot points in developing a new perspective centered on the importance of engaging and empowering our students as emerging clinicians. From these 6 princi -ples, we designed and developed 3 interventions. Each intervention is discussed in regard to its purpose, operation and overall integration into the program. (J Surg Ed 80:159-165. (c) 2022 Published by Elsevier Inc. on behalf of Association of Program Directors in Surgery.)