A. B. Schneider1, A. J. Benjamin1, A. Suah1, P. Roach3, M. Posner1, J. Matthews1, N. Schindler2, K. K. Roggin1 2Northshore University Health System,Department Of Surgery,Evanston, IL, USA 1University Of Chicago,Department Of Surgery,Chicago, IL, USA 3Captain James A. Lovell Federal Health Care Center,Surgery,Chicago, IL, USA
Introduction:
Consistent and effective evaluation of resident operative performance poses an ongoing challenge for surgical education. A decade ago, we designed and introduced the Surgical Training and Assessment Tool (STAT) to track trainee operative performance. However, in recent years we have noticed decreased compliance with the use of STAT and hypothesized that this reflected problems with ease of use and time lag to submission of evaluations. We designed a resident survey to critique STAT and then used the responses to develop an updated system, STAT 2.0, that was smart-phone accessible and could provide our residency program with enhanced feedback on professionalism, intraoperative communication and trainee-to-trainee teaching.
Methods:
General surgery residents at our institution were surveyed regarding their perceptions of STAT using a 5-point Likert scale (1=strongly disagree, 5=strongly agree). Our program then developed a proprietary web-based, mobile accessible evaluation platform. The questions assessed each resident’s medical knowledge, technical skills, intraoperative communication, and professionalism. Questions on attending participation based on the Zwisch scale, case complexity and overall grade were also asked. At the conclusion of each case both the operating resident (self-reflection) and attending completed an evaluation of the resident’s performance. In the event of a teaching assistant (TA) case, the junior resident was evaluated by both the attending surgeon and the chief resident. Descriptive statistics were performed on the evaluation data and survey.
Results:
The survey was completed by 26 of the 46 clinical and laboratory surgical residents (response rate: 56%). The responses are detailed in table one.
Our program piloted the new evaluation system over a one-month period. The median time for individual evaluation completion was 1 minute [1 – 3 minutes]. TA cases accounted for 33% of all evaluations. The residents tend to rate themselves at least 20% lower than the attending in technical skills, intraoperative communication and overall grade. The level of attending participation was shared by both groups. The senior residents rated the case as “more complex” than the attending surgeon in more than 25% of the evaluations.
Conclusions:
General surgery residents at our institution desire an operative evaluation system that is concise and easily accessible through mobile devices. The STAT 2.0 evaluation system is facile and appears promising to provide trainees and the residency program with valuable feedback related to resident performance, attending participation, intraoperative communication and professionalism.
