A novel simulation-based mastery learning (SBML) course for extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) cannulation—Introduction to ECMO Cannulation—was developed and tested at the Division of Cardiac Surgery at McMaster University in July 2024. Fifteen Cardiac Surgery and Critical Care trainees participated, and at the end of the course, all trainees successfully performed highly skilled ECMO cannulation on a manikin. All participants agreed/strongly agreed that practice in the course increased their ability to safely perform (or assist) this procedure.

A recent survey of Canadian cardiac surgery faculty and residents demonstrated that although there is significant interest in simulation for cardiac surgery skills, no Canadian training program is optimizing these high-resource interventions with routine pretraining, learning objectives, or debriefing with feedback.¹ Recognizing a need for resources to support simulation, the Division of Cardiac Surgery at McMaster University developed a simulation course to train cardiac surgery and critical care trainees to perform cannulation for veno-venous (V-V) ECMO.

SBML, the basis for this course, is a systematic and comprehensive medical education approach successfully used to improve trainee performance in parallel settings (eg, Northwestern’s SBML ACLS course). In SBML, participants undergo diagnostic pretesting to establish their baseline performance, then are trained with didactic lectures and deliberate practice on a task trainer with expert feedback. Finally, all participants must demonstrate a high level of skill, which is defined as the minimum passing standard (MPS). Any participant who does not reach this high standard is provided further practice opportunities and feedback until they successfully meet the MPS.²

This study had 2 objectives. The first was to develop an SBML curriculum for ECMO cannulation, including a skills checklist and establishing the MPS. The second was to test the SBML intervention with critical care and cardiac surgery trainees to assess baseline achievement, trainee achievement of the MPS, and trainee satisfaction.