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Pilot Study to Improve Resident Experience on Vascular Surgery by Standardizing Dissemination of Operative Steps
Tiffany R Bellomo1, Srihari K Lella1, Brandon Gaston1
1Division of Vascular and Endovascular Surgery, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA USA.
Objective:
Many surgical residencies have passed along attendings preferences and procedural knowledge as a highly utilized but informal resource. The objective was to assess the effect of providing operative steps and attending preferences on surgical resident performance.
Design:
This was a prospective observational study with a survey-based design.
Setting:
We created and shared vascular surgery operative steps including institutional and attending preferences with junior residents at the Massachusetts General Hospital.
Participants:
There were a total of 31 residents who completed a survey to assess self-perception of performance in operative knowledge and Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) Milestone criteria.
Results:
Advice from colleagues was the most utilized resource, followed by web-based materials. Of the web-based materials, almost all residents utilized Google searches over other web-based resources designed to specifically help surgical trainees. The vascular surgery resource was used by 90% of residents more than 3 times per week to prepare for operative cases. There was significant improvement in patient positioning, instrument selection, operative field exposure, anatomy, sequence of procedure, procedure choices, and peri-operative care knowledge.
Conclusions:
Development of institutional resources that specifically capture attending surgeon procedural variations can improve resident performance, encourage resident autonomy, and provide a catalog of approaches to challenging operative situations.
