I did a month of ENT my intern year. No trachs 'skin to skin' but did open up a few under very very close supervision. Helpful? Yes and no. It was 3 years ago. Nothing beats repetition for practice and I would never say I'm remotely comfortable with an open trach because I almost did one 3 years ago. What was most helpful was actually the scopes. Them guys scope darn near everyone in the office and that is something I HAVE actually practiced with regularity. If anything, OR trachs taught me that, as we all know, there's a lot of crap in the neck you don't want to cut with a scalpel if you don't know what you're doing.
ICU months had some bedside perc trachs in select patients. I helped out with everyone that I could, but that wasn't a ton over my required 2 months in residency. And that's a very controlled situation, again with close supervision.
We do practice with our cric kit on mannequins frequently enough. Since this is what I would actually grab in an emergency, it's nice to know what's in the kit, and how to use it. Our transtracheal block gives us a pretty intimate relationship with the feeling of a needle going through this membrane. From there on, hopefully the mannequin skills would kick in with the rest of the technique.
Side note: These guys Bair AE,Panacek EA,Wisner DH,et al.,Cricothyroidotomy:a 5-year experience at one institution,Journal of Emergency
Medicine(2003);24😛p.151156.claim a 10.9% incidence of pre-hospital and 1.1% incidence of in hospital emergency cricothyroidotomies. Seems a bit high to me.