• Krishna Moorthy, Yaron Munz, Sally Adams, Vikas Pandey, Ara Darzi, and Imperial College--St. Mary's Hospital Simulation Group.
• Department of Surgical Oncology and Technology, Imperial College, St. Mary's Hospital, 28 Carless Ave., Birmingham, London B17 9EQ, UK. k.moorthy@imperial.ac.uk
• Am. J. Surg. 2006 Jul 1;192(1):114-8.

BackgroundThe ability of surgeons to assess their own performance is essential for training and self-regulation. The latter is based on the premise that they recognize their weaknesses and seek remedial action accordingly.MethodsTwenty-seven surgical trainees performed a simulated saphenofemoral high-tie on a synthetic model in a simulated operating theater. The performance assessment consisted of blinded rating of technical skills and a global rating of team skills by a human factors expert and a trained surgical research fellow. Subjects also were asked to assess their own performance using the same methods. Spearman's rho was used for data analysis.ResultsThere was a strong correlation between the experts rating of technical skills and self-assessment (rho = .64). However, the correlation improved with increasing experience. It was .24 for junior trainees, .43 for those with intermediate experience, and .52 for senior trainees. There was a low correlation between the self-assessment and the expert scores for human factors skills (rho = .31). The correlation was higher for the 2 junior groups compared with the senior trainees.ConclusionsUnlike other studies on self-assessment, this study found that senior surgical trainees are accurate in their self-assessment of technical skills. However, this was not true in the case of human factors skills.

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