Journal of surgical education
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To determine if vacations in January or on-call status have an effect on American Board of Surgery In-Training Examination (ABSITE) scores. ⋯ Mean ABSITE scores were higher for residents who took a January vacation before the examination, despite no apparent difference in baseline test-taking ability. Among residents who took January vacations, mean scores were higher in the years they took vacation than in other years. On-call status did not have an effect on ABSITE performance. Vacation schedules in January can have a significant effect on ABSITE scores.
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Review Comparative Study
Duration of faculty training needed to ensure reliable or performance ratings.
The American Board of Surgery has mandated intraoperative assessment of general surgery residents, yet the time required to train faculty to accurately and reliably complete operating room performance evaluation forms is unknown. Outside of surgical education, frame-of-reference (FOR) training has been shown to be an effective training modality to teach raters the specific performance indicators associated with each point on a rating scale. Little is known, however, about what form and duration of FOR training is needed to accomplish reliable ratings among surgical faculty. ⋯ One-hour FOR training sessions are likely sufficient to train surgical faculty to reliably use a simple evaluation instrument for the assessment of intraoperative performance. Additional research is needed to determine how these results generalize to different assessment instruments.
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Comparative Study
Text messaging among residents and faculty in a university general surgery residency program: prevalence, purpose, and patient care.
There is little information about the use of text messaging (texting) devices among resident and faculty physicians for patient-related care (PRC). ⋯ Most resident and attending staff surveyed utilize texting, mostly for PRC. Texting was preferred for communicating routine PRC information. Our data may facilitate the development of guidelines for the appropriate use of PRC texting.
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Comparative Study
Are open abdominal procedures a thing of the past? An analysis of graduating general surgery residents' case logs from 2000 to 2011.
Since the introduction of laparoscopic surgery for cholecystectomy in 1989, the growth of minimally invasive surgery (MIS) has increased significantly in the United States. There is a growing concern that the pendulum has now shifted too far toward MIS and that current general surgery residents' exposure to open abdominal procedures is lacking. ⋯ The performance of open procedures in general surgery residency has declined significantly in the past 12 years. The effect of the decline in open cases in surgical training and practice remains to be determined.
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Both physicians and patients may perceive that having surgical residents participate in operative procedures may prolong operations and worsen outcomes. We hypothesized that resident participation would prolong operative times and potentially adversely affect postoperative outcomes. ⋯ There is no difference in operative time for common general surgery procedures with or without resident involvement. In addition, resident involvement is associated with a decrease in LOS. This information should be used to change physician and patient negative perceptions regarding resident involvement while performing surgical procedures.