Training and Learning Curves in Thyroid Surgery

The learning curve (LC) concept has become a dogma in surgery, and also in thyroidectomy. This chapter aims to define criteria for the LC in the most common surgical techniques of thyroidectomy, by investigating the number of procedures required for a single surgeon to achieve competence and the parameters used to define surgical proficiency. Methods to calculate the LC in each technique (conventional surgery, minimally invasive and robotic approaches) are discussed and analyzed in order to arrive at a proper definition of the criteria to be used for the completion of training in this specific type of surgery.