From the simple to the sublime: incorporating surgical models into your surgical curriculum.

Financial and time constraints have limited graduating residents' operative experience, making the use of models a necessary adjunct to a complete surgical curriculum. Models are useful tools to teaching surgical skills outside the operating room. They can be very realistic and complex, or they can be simple and economical. Models are developed to represent the anatomic arrangements seen in human patients, and to reproduce the biomechanical tasks necessary to complete a surgical case. Bench model laboratories are well-received by trainees and steepen the learning curve in the operating room.