See one. Do one. Teach one.

Family doctors who regularly perform office-based minor surgical procedures for their patients have demonstrated increased satisfaction in their practices.1 Procedural work provides an interesting complement to primary care, as it involves hands-on work with immediately apparent results. It can also reduce waiting times for patients, thus promoting patient satisfaction.

For the past 10 years, the Department of Family Medicine at the Élisabeth Bruyère Family Medicine Centre in Ottawa, Ont, has run mandatory surgical teaching clinics for our family medicine residents. Residents participate in a half-day of teaching and performing office-based procedures during their in-unit rotations, for a total of 20 clinics during the 2-year residency program.

Our semistructured curriculum revolves around specific cases seen; however, we also give structured lessons at each weekly clinic. We emphasize the importance of proper technique, documentation, and knowing one’s limits. To help teach the more hands-on topics, we use a video instruction series filmed in our clinic. These videos, which have proven to be a popular addition to our teaching program, complement and standardize the exposure to various cases among residents.

The first of these teaching videos—”Shave Biopsy and Skin Tag Removal”—is now available on-line through the Canadian Family Physician website at www.cfp.ca. See the CFPlus box at the end of this article for instructions on how to access the video. A new video will be made available on-line with each of the next 5 issues of Canadian Family Physician.

We welcome practitioners and teaching units to use these videos for pedagogic purposes. We’ve made these videos available on-line to encourage others to set up similar surgical procedure teaching programs. Minor procedures should remain a standard part of primary care practice, as they are beneficial for patients, lower health care costs, and lead to increased satisfaction among family doctors.

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Video 1

Shave biopsy and skin tag removal

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