• D M Chapman, J A Marx, B Honigman, P Rosen, and S H Cavanaugh.
• Department of Emergency Medicine, University of California, Davis, USA.
• Acad Emerg Med. 1994 Jul 1;1(4):373-81.

ObjectiveIn clinical practice, thoracotomy and other critical emergency procedures are rarely required. Consequently, medical students and residents have difficulty acquiring procedural competency in these critical procedures. The authors developed objective written, computer, and animal-model assessments of thoracotomy procedural competency to permit comparison of the reliability and validity of these three procedural assessment modalities.MethodsThoracotomy procedural competency was evaluated for 18 persons at three levels of training (medical student, resident, faculty), using written, computer, and animal-model assessments. A prospective, sequential assessment design was used, with the examinees serving as their own controls. Procedural competency was defined in terms of performance time (animal time scale) and performance accuracy (written accuracy, computer accuracy, and animal accuracy scales) for three thoracotomy procedures (opening the chest, pericardiotomy, and aortic cross-clamping). Level of training was the independent variable, and procedural competency scores were the outcome measures. Confounding variables included previous thoracotomy and computer experience.ResultsComputer and animal-model assessments produced reliable results (Chronbach's alpha > 0.50). The animal time scale and computer accuracy scale best reflected the expected skill differences among levels of physician training, providing support for construct validity. In contrast, written and animal accuracy scale scores did not significantly differ by level of physician training. Moreover, previous thoracotomy experience (i.e., number of procedures previously performed) was not a significant predictor of procedural competency.ConclusionsThis study demonstrates that critical emergency medicine procedures can be evaluated reliably and validly using computer simulation and animal-model assessments. Neither previous thoracotomy experience nor knowledge of procedure content adequately predicts thoracotomy competency.

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