Simulation use in training is rapidly becoming a mainstay educational tool seen to offer perceived benefits of a safe environment for repeated practice and learning from errors without jeopardising patient safety. However, there is currently little evidence addressing the trainees’ perspectives and attitudes of simulation training, particularly in comparison with trainers and the educational community.

This study investigates orthopaedic trainees’ and trainers’ conceptions of learning from simulation-based training, exploring whether the orthopaedic community are ‘on the same page’, with respect to each other and the educational community. Qualitative research in the form of semi-structured interviews is used to identify commonalities and differences between trainee and trainer conceptions, based on respective experiences and expectations, and suggests ways of enhancing collaboration between stakeholders to achieve better alignment of conceptions.

The research revealed that orthopaedic trainees and trainers conceive key themes in a similar manner: supporting the role of simulation in developing the ‘pre-trained novice’ as opposed to skill refinement or maintenance; attributing greater importance to non-technical rather than technical skills development using simulation; questioning the transferability to practice of learnt skills; and emphasising similar barriers to increased curriculum integration, including financing and scheduling. These conceptions are largely in contrast to those of the educational community, possibly due to differing conceptions of learning between the two communities, along with a lack of a common language in the discourse of simulation.

There was some evidence of changing attitudes and positively emerging conceptions among the orthopaedic community, and capitalising on this by engaging trainers and trainees may help reconcile the differing conceptions and facilitate increasing simulation utilisation and curriculum integration. Developing a common language to make the educational more tangible to surgeons, bringing the educational closer to the surgical, may help maximise the educational benefit and shape the future of simulation use in surgical training.