• Nicolas J Dedy, Boris Zevin, Esther M Bonrath, and Teodor P Grantcharov.
• Division of General Surgery, St. Michael's Hospital, Toronto, Canada. Electronic address: DedyN@smh.ca.
• J Surg Educ. 2013 Sep 1;70(5):578-84.

ObjectivesThe purpose of the present survey was to (1) establish the prevalence of Crew Resource Management (CRM)- and team-training interventions among general surgery residency programs of the United States and Canada; (2) to characterize current approaches to training and assessment of nontechnical skills; and (3) to inquire about program directors' (PDs') recommendations for future curricula in graduate medical education.DesignAn online questionnaire was developed by the authors and distributed via email to the directors of all accredited general surgery residency programs across the United States and Canada. After 3 email reminders, paper versions were sent to all nonresponders.Participants And SettingPDs of accredited general surgery residency programs in the United States and Canada.ResultsOne hundred twenty (47%) PDs from the United States and 9 (53%) from Canada responded to the survey. Of all respondents, 32% (n = 40) indicated conducting designated team-training interventions for residents. Three main instructional strategies were identified: combined approaches using simulation and didactic methods (42%, n = 16); predominantly simulation-based approaches (37%, n = 14); and didactic approaches (21%, n = 8). Correspondingly, 83% (n = 93) of respondents recommended a combination of didactic methods and opportunities for practice for future curricula. A high agreement between responding PDs was shown regarding learning objectives for a proposed team-based training curriculum (α = 0.95).ConclusionsThe self-reported prevalence of designated CRM- and team-training interventions among responding surgical residency programs was low. For the design of future curricula, the vast majority of responding PDs advocated for the combination of interactive didactic methods and opportunities for practice.Copyright © 2013 Association of Program Directors in Surgery. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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