Journal of surgical education
-
Teaching and assessing professionalism and interpersonal communication skills can be more difficult for surgical residency programs than teaching medical knowledge or patient care, for which many structured educational curricula and assessment tools exist. Residents often learn these skills indirectly, by observing the behavior of their attendings when communicating with patients and colleagues. The purpose of this study was to assess the results of an educational curriculum we created to teach and assess our residents in professionalism and communication. ⋯ The lack of correlation between comfort in delivering bad news and prior education on the subject may indicate the difficulty in imparting communication and professionalism skills to residents effectively. Understanding communication style differences between our residents and the general population can help us teach professionalism and communication skills more effectively. With the next accreditation system, residency programs would need to demonstrate that residents are acquiring these skills in their training. SP encounters are effective in teaching and assessing these skills.
-
Residents seek postresidency fellowship training to increase competency with novel surgical techniques and augment their fund of knowledge. Research productivity is a vital component of advancement in academic urology. Our objectives were to use the h-index (an objective and readily available bibliometric that has been repeatedly shown to correlate with scholarly impact, funding procurement, and academic promotion in urology as well as other specialties) to determine whether any relationship exists between fellowship training and scholarly impact among academic urologists. Additional examination was performed to determine whether any differences in scholarly influence are present among practitioners in the major urologic subspecialties. ⋯ No difference in h-index existed between fellowship-trained and nonfellowship-trained urologists, although practitioners in the subspecialty cohorts with the highest research productivity (nonfellowship-trained and urologic oncologists) comprised 70% of department chairpersons. This relationship suggests that a strong research profile is highly valued during selection for academic promotion. Differences existed on further comparison by subspecialty. Fellowship training may represent another potential opportunity to introduce structured research experiences for trainees.
-
Comparative Study
Discordance in current procedural terminology coding for foot and ankle procedures between residents and attending surgeons.
Because of the importance of current procedural terminology (CPT) coding in both resident education evaluation and practice management, this study was undertaken to evaluate the correlation and interrater reliability between residents and attending physicians in CPT coding for orthopedic foot and ankle surgeries as well as to determine attending surgeons' and residents' familiarity with and confidence in the coding process. ⋯ Resident and attending surgeon concordance in CPT coding for foot and ankle procedures is poor, and residents have a low level of confidence in logging CPT codes, possibly because of a lack of training and preparation in coding. Because CPT coding is used not only for practice management but also has implications for evaluating institutions by accreditation bodies, educational initiatives to improve resident confidence and accuracy with CPT coding may be warranted.
-
For the past 15 years at our institution's general surgery residency program, 3 of the senior residents have been chosen to be awarded either (1) Best Resident in Research, (2) Best Resident in Teaching, or (3) Best Resident Overall. Considering that these awards serve as data representing outstanding performance as surgical residents, the objective of this study was to determine the association between receiving one of these awards and objective measures of performance. ⋯ Many factors contribute to success during general surgery residency. Our study showed that higher USMLE and ABSITE scores were not associated with receiving top awards in final years of training at one institution over 15 years.
-
Rural longitudinal integrated clerkship (LIC) programs for third-year medical students provide strong educational curricula and can nurture interest in rural surgical practice. Students learn technical skills in an apprenticeship model. Variability in instruction and patient experiences across sites, coupled with a lack of simulation facilities, raise some concerns about technical skill development. To explore the adequacy of skills acquisition for students in the University of Minnesota Rural Physician Associate Program (RPAP), this study compared RPAP students' performance on a scenario-based Objective Structured Assessment of Technical Skills (OSATS) with that of traditional surgery block clerkship students (Course 7500). ⋯ This study supports the viability of the LIC model for fundamental skills acquisition when augmented with introductory simulation skills training and online resources. It also suggests that simulation fills a training gap for students in a traditional surgery block clerkship program. It opens a dialog about the potential partnership of surgery departments with rural LICs to address rural general surgery shortages. Further research in this aspect is needed.