Annex A > Chapter 14 - Care in the Operating Theatre and the `Learning Curve' > The `learning curve'

The `learning curve'

Introduction

56 The focus of this part of the chapter is the approach adopted by the surgical team, and particularly the surgeons, to new procedures, and how surgeons became competent at a procedure. Reference will be made to what in evidence to the Inquiry was described as the `learning curve', the adverse effects of this and how this might be overcome.

57 By way of illustration, we will focus on the Arterial Switch programme [72] in Bristol, as this was a new procedure introduced within the period of the Inquiry's Terms of Reference.

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Footnotes

[72] See Chapter 3 for an explanation of this term