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Evaluating the effectiveness of a 2-year curriculum in a surgical skills center
Dimitri J Anastakis1, Kyle R Wanzel, Mitchell H Brown
1Department of Surgery and Centre for Research in Education, University of Toronto, FP4-140, 399 Bathurst St., Toronto, ON, M5T 2S8, Canada. dimitri.anastakis@uhn.on.ca
Background:
This study was a formative evaluation of a 2-year Surgical Skills Center Curriculum (SSCC) using objective measures of surgical performance and self-reported process-oriented evaluations.
Methods:
Fifty postgraduate third-year (PGY-3) residents participated in an Objective Structured Assessment of Technical Skills (OSATS) examination. Nineteen residents underwent the SSCC and 31 residents did not. During the SSCC, self-reported student and faculty evaluations were completed after each session.
Results:
For the OSATS examination, scores were not significantly different between treatment and control groups, on either the checklist (66.4 +/- 6.1 versus 64.1 +/- 10.8) or global rating scale scores (66.9 +/- 6.9 versus 68.0 +/- 9.6). Further comparisons between groups on individual OSATS stations revealed no significant differences between groups. The majority of student and faculty evaluation remarks were highly positive.
Conclusions:
The OSATS results failed to support our hypothesis that training on a core procedure in a single session during a SSCC would have an appreciable and sustained effect after 2 years. Self-reported process-oriented evaluations support the utility of our SSCC.