Surgical educator preferences regarding key objective structured clinical examination topics.

Area of Science:

• Medical Education
• Surgical Training
• Assessment Methods

Background:

• Traditional methods for assessing surgical residents and students are often inadequate.
• The Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) is an increasingly favored assessment technique.
• Optimal content for surgical OSCEs requires clarification.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the opinions of international surgical educators on essential OSCE content.
• To identify the most critical topics for inclusion in surgical OSCEs.
• To provide data for the development of effective surgical OSCEs.

Main Methods:

• A survey was distributed to 674 surgical educators globally.
• Respondents ranked the top five topics from History Taking, Physical Examination, Data Interpretation, and Surgical Technique.
• A weighted scoring system was used based on Likert scale rankings.

Main Results:

• A usable response rate of 32.3% (218/674) was achieved.
• Highly ranked topics included "abdominal pain" (History Taking), "acute abdomen" (Physical Examination), "chest X ray" (Data Interpretation), and "central line" (Surgical Technique).
• Specific high-ranking topics were identified within each of the four evaluated areas.

Conclusions:

• The survey provides valuable insights into skills prioritized by experienced surgical educators.
• Findings offer evidence-based guidelines for constructing surgical OSCEs.
• This data can enhance the relevance and effectiveness of surgical training assessments.