Free. Marked by experts.
Film a closure on the bench and upload it. An expert reviewer watches it and writes back within five working days.
Simulation and bench work only, no patient footage. Videos are kept to build our assessment model, which is what makes this free.
How it works
Prop your phone on a pile of textbooks with the suture pad underneath, and you have everything a reviewer needs to see your hands. Around twenty seconds.
Most surgical skills are demonstrated once and then expected to improve through repetition alone.
Repetition on its own does not refine technique. It rehearses whatever you are already doing, errors included, until that becomes the version you default to under pressure. What changes technique is someone applying the same standard to your work each time, and coming back to the skill after a gap rather than drilling it in one sitting. SkillsM8 provides both of those.
The Framework
The SkillsM8 Framework came out of patterns that kept recurring in surgical training. When a closure deteriorates, one pillar has usually been overlooked. Select a pillar to see what a reviewer looks at.
Where habits form
Grip, tension and instrument choice. Most technical marks are lost here, and this is where unreviewed repetition does the most damage.
A reviewer marks
What you get back
Good instrument handling overall, and you started with an initial no-touch technique [3:06], but handled the needle with fingers towards the end with the short tail [5:07]. Handling the needle with your fingers can fail you in OSCE settings. Poor-quality toothed tissue forceps make needle handling more difficult; consider using non-toothed for this purpose. This is important to hone at this stage, as endoscopic, microvascular and robotic skills depend on it.
Sutures placed too close together [3:34]. This risks tissue ischaemia and wound dehiscence. Consider marking your bites evenly beforehand routinely, or even using your forceps as a guide. Wound approximates, no steps, no inversion.
Overall, knots lying flat and squared off. They are tied close to the wound edge rather than to the side. Ensuring these are not close to the incision line itself helps to reduce bacterial load and reduce risk of a surgical site infection during wound healing. [3:39]
Good use of non-dominant hand and forceps to support soft tissues [3:15]. Good use of forceps, no excessive forces on tissue edges.
Next submission: same task, focusing on even bite spacing. Leave two weeks between attempts rather than two days.
A real submission, anonymised. Marking covers all ten indicators; four are shown here. Tap a timestamp on the video to jump to that moment, just as the trainee can.
How it works
Bench or simulation, in your own time. A suture pad and a phone propped up on some books is enough.
Two to five minutes of a single task, filmed over your hands. Tell us what you filmed and what you want looked at.
Written feedback within five working days. Then repeat the same task after a gap.
Your footage
We do not accept patient footage. Nothing filmed in theatre, in clinic or on hospital premises. Anything containing patient identifiable material is deleted and not reviewed.
Your submission reaches the reviewer with your grade and your task attached. Your name and email stay with the reference number and are used to send your feedback back to you.
Files are held on servers in western Europe and never leave that region. Nothing is transferred outside the UK or EEA.
SkillsM8 is a practice tool. It is not a workplace based assessment, nothing is reported to your training programme and no record reaches your ARCP or its equivalent wherever you train.
Submitted videos and the expert marking that goes with them are kept to build a SkillsM8 assessment model. That is what makes the service free, and it is a condition of using it. You can ask for your own video to be removed at any time by quoting your reference.
Your footage is not sold, licensed to any third party, or used in marketing. It is seen by your reviewer and used by SkillsM8 to develop the model, and may appear in anonymised form in SkillsM8 research, education and publications.
Coming soon
Short technique videos covering the basics, free and open to every trainee. It is in the works now. Leave your email and we will tell you the moment it opens.
Submission portal
Why ask about skin tone? Feedback models trained only on pale synthetic skin perform worse on everything else. Declaring the tone of your practice material helps us build something that works for every patient.
Name, email, grade, task, a video file, the verification box and all three confirmations are needed.
On hospital WiFi?
Large uploads often fail on hospital networks. Mobile data or home broadband works better. If you want to finish this later, we can email you the link.
Questions
No money. What you give instead is the video and the marking that comes back, which SkillsM8 keeps to build its own assessment model. That exchange is what makes expert feedback free.
An expert reviewer with a postgraduate teaching qualification, working against the SkillsM8 Framework. They see your footage and your grade. They do not see your name.
Bench or simulation work. Suture pad, skin model or synthetic tissue. One task, filmed from above your hands, two to five minutes long.
Anything involving a patient. No theatre footage, no clinic, no identifiable people, no hospital premises or identifying signage in shot. Submissions containing patient material are deleted without review.
The written feedback is yours and you can attach it to your ISCP evidence if it helps. It is not a formal workplace based assessment and does not replace one.
Five working days. If a reviewing round is running long you will be told when you upload, not afterwards.
Submissions are retained as part of the assessment dataset. If you want yours removed, email us with your reference number and it goes.
It is free and nothing reaches your training record.
Submit a video