Association of Plastic Surgeons of India Postgraduate Medical Education (APSI-PGME) Course: How Far Have We Reached?

The Association of Plastic Surgeons of India (APSI) felt the need to create an opportunity for the residents to participate in a mock viva voce patterned course on the national platform in front of examiners from the various centers and instill a feeling of confidence and healthy competition among them. Apart from the responsibilities of teaching departments running the formal plastic surgery training programs, the association also took upon itself to further strengthen the academics, especially of residents working at centers that lack regular teaching classes, and started the postgraduate medical education course in October 2022.

The course module was divided into nine sections: one long case, five short cases, instrument, radiology, operative. It was conducted over 2.5 hours for two consecutive evenings on an online platform (apsi.vidocto.com). The flow comprised presentation by the resident with two faculty examiners for asking questions and two course mentors for observation followed by feedback to the resident on his/her performance. Course feedback was collected in a Google form.

A total of eight courses have been conducted to date. The online synchronous viewership varied from 83 to 172 (mean, 115.94 ± 34.01), out of which 62 to 67% (mean, 74.18 ± 4.06) were residents and 33 to 38% (mean, 40.28 ± 3.93) were faculty. These courses were also archived for later access. The feedback showed that 96.6% participants agreed that the objective to enhance knowledge was achieved and 100% agreed that such a program will benefit in gaining confidence. Thirty-one percent students rated their learning experience after the course as 10 on a scale of 1 to 10. The majority of the faculty and residents preferred the online mode.

Being a maiden initiative of its kind, the APSI-PGME is a competency-driven course that has significantly enhanced the residents' confidence as a result of gain in knowledge and understanding.