Assessing the Comfort of General Surgery Residents With Various Extremity Splints at Multiple Time Points Before and...

Background In many resident training hospitals, non-orthopedic trainees, such as general surgery residents, participate in early trauma care and may perform initial fracture stabilization. This study evaluated whether a structured splinting curriculum improved general surgery residents' comfort with identifying and applying common extremity splints. Methods Seventeen general surgery residents (seven postgraduate year-1 (PGY-1), one PGY-2, three PGY-3, and two PGY-5) at a community Level II trauma center (San Joaquin General Hospital, California, USA) voluntarily participated in a structured educational session approved by their residency program director. This educational session was part of the general surgery weekly education lecture curriculum and was led by orthopedic residents and an orthopedic technician on June 25, 2025. Resident comfort with identifying and applying splints was measured using a five-point Likert scale at three time points: pre-course, immediately post-course, and six weeks post-course. Changes were analyzed using the Friedman test with Wilcoxon signed-rank post-hoc comparisons and Bonferroni correction. Results Fifteen of 17 enrolled residents completed surveys at all three time points (88.2% survey completion). Two residents completed the six-week survey outside of the predefined nine-week cutoff period and were excluded from the final analysis, resulting in a final analytic cohort of 13 residents (76.5% of enrolled participants). Median comfort scores increased from 2 (IQR 1-4) pre-course to 4 (IQR 3-4.25) immediately post-course and remained at 4 (IQR 3-4) at six weeks. Comfort improved significantly across time for all splints (all Friedman p < 0.001). Pairwise comparisons demonstrated significant improvements from pre-course to immediate post-course and from pre-course to six weeks (all p ≤ 0.016), with no significant change between post-course and six weeks. Conclusions A brief splinting curriculum significantly improved and sustained general surgery residents' comfort with splint identification and application.