Standardized training assessment of residents in obstetrics and gynecology on entrustable professional activities

Entrustable professional activity (EPA) presents trainees' tasks or responsibilities which are entrusted to the unsupervised execution once they have attained sufficient specific competence. EPAs evaluation emphasize the integrity of medical behavior, directly reflecting the clinical ability of trainees and reflect the trust of trainers. Compared with other evalution method, EPAs evaluation is more close to clinical practice and can better reflect clinical competence. Our study conducted a multi-center study in Qilu Hospital of Shandong University to evaluate EPAs among residents. This study was to evaluate EPAs of residents and identify problems in the residency training in Shandong Province, so as to put forward constructive suggestions in futrue.

This is a cross-sectional study. An assessment survey comprised of 15 EPAs was invented and carried out in Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Qilu hospital of Shandong Province. Each resident conducted self-assessment and director-assessment through by internet questionnaire of Wenjuanxing.

In our study, 132 residents and 45 directors were totally enrolled. Both self- and director- assessment had an increased scores trend year by year in each EPAs. However, for PGY1 and PGY2 residents, self-assessment and director-assessment results were relatively consistent. Compared with director-assessment, significant difference was found in self-assessment on admit a patient, select and interpret auxiliary examinations, compose medical documents, perform basic operation and perform health education. Among the four different position of residents (social training residents, entrusted training residents, professional master and permanent staff), permanent staff has the highest EPA scores in this EPAs-evaluation study. In this study, we found significant difference between self-assessment and director-assessment in PGY2 and PGY3 (p < 0.05).

EPAs are practically useful in assessment of OB &GYN residents. EPA4, EPA7, EPA1 and EPA15 need to be improved in future training. Individualized feedbacks should be provided based on the difference between self-assessment and director- assessment.