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Background: Advancing surgical techniques require a high level of adaptation and learning skills on the part of surgeons. We need selection procedures and decision support systems for the recruitment of medical students and young surgeons. We aimed to investigate factors influencing the surgical performance and learning abilities of surgeons and medical students. Material and Methods: The training scores of persons attending 16 standardized training courses (at three training centers) of the German Working Group for Gynecological Endoscopy (AGE e.V.) from 2017 to 2020, individual characteristics, and the results of psychomotor tests of three-dimensional imagination and hand-eye coordination were correlated. Similar analyses were performed for medical students in their final clinical year from 2019 to 2020. The training concept was evaluated in a prospective, multicenter, interdisciplinary, multinational setting. Results: In all, 180 of 206 physicians (response rate 87.4%) and 261 medical students (response rate 100%) completed the multi-stage training concept successfully. Of personal characteristics, the strongest correlation was noted for good surgical performance and learning success, and the absolute number of performed laparoscopic surgeries (r=0.28-0.45, P<0.001/r=0.1-0.28, P<0.05). A high score on the spatial visualization ability test was also correlated with good surgical performance (r=0.18-0.27, P<0.01). Among medical students with no surgical experience, however, age was negatively correlated with surgical performance, i.e. the higher the age, the lower the surgical performance (r=0.13/r=0.22, P<0.05/P<0.001). Conclusion: Individual factors (e.g. surgical experience, self-assessment, spatial visualization ability, eye-hand coordination, age) influence surgical performance and learning. Further research will be needed to create better decision support systems and selection procedures for prospective physicians. The possibilities of surgical training should be improved, promoted, and made accessible to a maximum number of surgical trainees because individual learning curves can be overcome even by less talented surgeons. Training options should be institutionalized for those attending medical school.

A rise in the rates of sexually transmitted diseases, both worldwide and in Germany, has been observed especially among persons between the ages of 15 and 24 years. Since many infections are devoid of symptoms or cause few symptoms, the diseases are detected late, may spread unchecked, and be transmitted unwittingly. In the event of persistent infection, the effects depend on the pathogen in question. Manifestations vary widely, ranging from pelvic inflammatory disease, most often caused by Chlamydia trachomatis (in Germany nearly 30% of PID) or Neisseria gonorrhoeae (in Germany <2% of PID), to the development of genital warts or cervical dysplasia in cases of infection with the HP virus. Causal treatment does exist in most cases and should always be administered to the sexual partner(s) as well. An infection during pregnancy calls for an individual treatment approach, depending on the pathogen and the week of pregnancy.

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