Resident Interventional Spine Course with Didactics and Hands-On Skills Lab

Fluoroscopically guided spine procedures are a common and integral treatment option for a comprehensive spine care plan. Unfortunately, interventional spine education and training can vary greatly between residency programs.

A two-session comprehensive workshop was developed to educate residents on interventional spine procedures using a mix of interactive lectures and hands-on education. This course includes an overview of (1) national guidelines, (2) case discussions, (3) systematic chart review, (4) procedural kit preparation, (5) fluoroscopic spine procedure simulation, and (6) management of postprocedure complications. Residents were asked to complete a pre- and postcourse evaluation to report their self-perceived confidence in several domains of interventional spine care, as well as their perceived benefits of the course content.

Since 2018, 26 different residents have participated in the course. Participants reported a significant increase in confidence across several interventional spine care domains, particularly in addressing procedure complications and understanding procedure selection. Resident feedback provided high praise for how this course offered didactics, case discussion, and hands-on learning opportunities in a low-stress environment different from traditional lectures or clinical rotations.

This interventional spine course provides resident-level education and active experiences essential to better understand interventional spine care. This course can serve as a framework for other residency programs to develop their own interventional spine course and raise the standards for interventional spine education across all residency programs. Future efforts include the development of a competency-based tool to assess resident skill acquisition longitudinally across their training and once in independent practice.