Mock Paging in a Surgical Boot Camp: A Pre/Post Evaluation of Self-reported Confidence, Anxiety, and Communication...

Senior medical students entering surgical internship often have limited experience managing nurse pages and common cross-cover problems. Mock paging may help fill this gap, but paired learner-centered outcomes data within surgical boot camps remain limited. We evaluated whether a mock paging exercise was associated with changes in self-reported confidence, anxiety, and communication with nurses.

Single-center pre/post evaluation using identical surveys administered before and after a mock paging intervention. Surveys assessed confidence and anxiety across 11 common on-call scenarios and communication with nurses across 8 Likert items. Scores were standardized to a 0-100 scale, and primary analyses were restricted to matched preintervention and postintervention surveys.

A senior medical student surgical boot camp at the University of New Mexico.

Senior medical students who completed the preintervention survey; the paired analytic cohort comprised those who also completed the postintervention survey.

Of 46 students who completed the preintervention survey, 42 (91.3%) completed the postintervention survey and comprised the paired analytic cohort. All 3 standardized self-reported composite outcomes changed significantly from preintervention to postintervention. Mean confidence increased from 41.0 (SD 13.6) to 73.1 (SD 11.7), for a mean paired change of 32.1 points on the 0 to 100 scale (95% CI, 27.5-36.7; p < 0.001). Mean anxiety decreased from 53.0 (SD 15.6) to 33.2 (SD 17.5), for a mean paired change of -19.8 points (95% CI, -26.5 to -13.2; p < 0.001). Mean communication increased from 60.6 (SD 13.8) to 81.7 (SD 9.8), for a mean paired change of 21.1 points (95% CI, 17.0-25.3; p < 0.001). Sensitivity analyses were concordant.

Following a surgical boot camp that included mock paging, senior medical students reported greater confidence in responding to common nurse-page scenarios, lower anxiety related to those scenarios, and better self-rated communication with nurses. Future studies should determine whether these immediate gains endure and translate into demonstrably better nurse-rated communication and on-call performance during internship.