Journal of clinical anesthesia
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The American Board of Anesthesiology's Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE), as a component of its initial certification process, had been administered in-person in a dedicated assessment center since its launch in 2018 until March 2020. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, a virtual format of the exam was piloted in December 2020 and was administered in 2021. This study aimed to compare candidate performance, examiner grading severity, and scenario difficulty between these two formats of the OSCE. ⋯ Our retrospective analyses of first-time OSCEs found comparable candidate performance and examiner grading severity between the in-person and virtual formats, despite the virtual scenarios being more difficult than the in-person scenarios. These results provided assurance that the virtual OSCE functioned reasonably well in a high-stakes setting.
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To implement and assess a cardiopulmonary point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) objective structured clinical examination (OSCE) in a large cohort of graduating anesthesia residents. ⋯ Our study demonstrates that a cardiopulmonary POCUS OSCE can be successfully implemented across multiple anesthesia training programs. While most residents were able to perform basic ultrasound views and identify structures, advanced interpretive skills and maneuvers performed lower.
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This study evaluated whether there were improvements in the number of departmental National Institutes of Health (NIH) training grants and the academic productivity of departmental chairs in terms of NIH research funding and PubMed-cited publications when compared to chairs of the same departments in 2006. ⋯ When compared to 2006, department of anesthesiology chairs had more publications in 2021; however, NIH funding rates remained unchanged. The specialty had 19% female chairs, and those chairs had fewer publications than their male counterparts, though sex differences were attenuated using metrics that account for disparities in career length.