Association of Gender and Operative Feedback Quality in Surgical Residents

Feedback is critical for learning, however, gender differences exist in the quality of feedback that trainees receive. For example, narrative feedback on surgical trainees' end-of-block rotations differs based on trainee-faculty gender dyads, with female faculty giving higher quality feedback and male trainees receiving higher quality feedback. Though this represents evidence of gender bias in global evaluations, there is limited understanding of how much bias might be present in operative workplace-based assessments (WBAs). In this study, we explore the quality of narrative feedback among trainee-faculty gender dyads in an operative WBA.

A previously validated natural language processing model was used to examine instances of narrative feedback and assign a probability of being characterized as high quality feedback (defined as feedback which was relevant as well as corrective and/or specific). A linear mixed model was performed, with probability of high quality feedback as the outcome, and resident gender, faculty gender, PGY, case complexity, autonomy rating, and operative performance rating as explanatory variables.

Analyses included 67,434 SIMPL operative performance evaluations (2,319 general surgery residents, 70 institutions) collected from September 2015 through September 2021.

Of 36.3% evaluations included narrative feedback. Male faculty were more likely to provide narrative feedback compared to female faculty. Mean probabilities of receiving high quality feedback ranged from 81.6 (female faculty-male resident) to 84.7 (male faculty-female resident). Model-based results demonstrated that female residents were more likely to receive high quality feedback (p < 0.01), however, there was no significant difference in probability of high quality narrative feedback based on faculty-resident gender dyad (p = 0.77).

Our study revealed resident gender differences in the probability of receiving high-quality narrative feedback following a general surgery operation. However, we found no significant differences based on faculty-resident gender dyad. Male faculty were more likely to provide narrative feedback compared to their female colleagues. Further research using general surgery resident-specific feedback quality models may be warranted.