Relevance of the learning provided by the field of research for academic training in surgical instrumentation

Abstract

Dear editor:

With great enthusiasm, I see that in your magazine Interamerican Journal of Health Sciences, relevance is given to the learning that the field of scientific research provides to the surgical instrumentation training.

Science as human activity, creator of knowledge through observation methodologies and experimentation in order to answer questions objectively and systematically, manifests benefits at a global level with the generation of knowledge, the application of these in the development of innovative technologies and in the decision-making with the purpose of solving individual and collective human problems, among others. Scientific practice requires trained personnel to access reference sources and tools that allow critical, consensual and objective reflection in the execution of all stages in the development of an investigation. This is nothing more than a personnel that has learned to learn by itself to obtain evidence that will be useful, reliable and timely to resolve the research questions. There is where remains the main individual benefit of science.1

A graduated in surgical instrumentation will not only find an occupational field in operating rooms, sterilization centers, teaching spaces, care practice at different levels of the health system, participation in health promotion and prevention programs, but they will also find it in the execution of research projects and the development of products in the industry of supplies and hospital equipment. In this way, including basic scientific training during the curricular development of the career as one of the main axes satisfies an unavoidable need. UNESCO’s (2014)2 final report on education supports this perspective by proposing the challenge of: “Graduates for a sustainable future”, in which it marks as a priority the need to expand the value of teaching and researching to “generate changes”

To achieve this goal from teaching, it is proposed to apply the approach of knowledge through competencies: the knowing-knowing, knowing- doing and knowing-being, to which was added two new axes that consist of empowering young people and in applying what they have learned to change the environment. These pillars make possible the evaluation of the progress of self-managed learning such as the obtained through competencies and that has an influence on professional practice, facing the changing scenarios that we face as a society.

Any degree course that includes an approach to the scientific training of its students provides the necessary training to collaborate in multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary work teams.3 A graduated of surgical instrumentation with this perspective obtains a path to expand and transmit the knowledge learned through participation in publications with scientific quality and the dictation of postgraduate courses on: leadership, humanization and safety (for the patient and the team of health), advances in equipment and surgical techniques, among others.

Including research in higher education will benefit students in developing organizational skills, understanding with other disciplines, as well as increasing their academic productivity and the possibility of relying on their tutorial activities and educational advancement, which makes them professionals, critical and committed to promoting progress and development