A Checklist Intervention to Assess Resident Diagnostic Knee and Shoulder Arthroscopic Efficiency

The purpose of this investigation was to apply an arthroscopic shoulder and knee checklist in the evaluation of orthopedic resident arthroscopic skill efficiency and to demonstrate the use of a surgical checklist for assessing resident surgical efficiency over the course of a surgical rotation.

Orthopedic surgery residents rotating on the sports medicine service at our institution between 2011 and 2015 were enrolled in this study. Residents were administered a shoulder and knee arthroscopy assessment tool at the beginning and end of their 6-week rotation. The assessment tools consisted of checklist items for knee and shoulder arthroscopy skills. Residents were timed while performing these checklist tasks. The primary outcome measure was resident improvement as a function of time to completion for the checklist items, and the intervention was participation in a 6-week resident rotation with weekly arthroscopy didactics, cadaver simulator work, and operating room experience. A paired t test was used to compare means.

Mean time to checklist completion during week 1 among study participants for the knee checklist was 787.4 seconds for the knee checklist and 484.4 seconds at the end of the rotation. Mean time to checklist completion during week 1 among study participants for the shoulder checklist was 1655.3 seconds and 832.7 seconds for the shoulder checklist at the end of the rotation. Mean improvement in time to completion was 303 seconds (p = 0.0006, SD = 209s) and 822.6 seconds (p = 0.00008, SD = 525.2s) for the arthroscopic knee and shoulder assessments, respectively.

An arthroscopic checklist is 1 method to evaluate and assess resident efficiency and improvement during surgical training. Among residents participating in this study, we found statistically significant improvements in time for arthroscopic task completion.

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