Surgical Trainee Performance and Alignment With Surgical Program Director Expectations.

Area of Science:

• Surgical education and training
• Operative performance assessment
• Residency program evaluation

Background:

• Surgical residency aims to equip trainees for independent practice of core procedures.
• Assessing trainee readiness against program director expectations is crucial for effective surgical education.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the alignment between graduating general surgery residents' operative performance and program director expectations.
• To determine if residents are prepared to independently perform core surgical procedures deemed important by directors.

Main Methods:

• A cross-sectional observational study analyzed operative performance ratings for 29,885 procedures by 1861 residents across 54 US general surgery programs.
• Compared resident performance data with a national survey of program directors' rankings of core procedure importance.

Main Results:

• The average probability of a graduating resident being deemed practice-ready for core procedures was 0.90, but varied significantly (0.59-0.99).
• A weak correlation (P=0.06) was found between resident readiness and procedure importance, suggesting a misalignment.
• Residents had limited opportunities to train on many clinically important procedures.

Conclusions:

• Graduating general surgery residents' operative performance may not align with program director expectations.
• There is a need to reassess surgical training curricula to better match clinical practice needs and program director priorities.