Podiatric Resident Performance on a Basic Competency Examination in Musculoskeletal Medicine

A basic competency examination in musculoskeletal medicine has previously been administered to residents across a variety of medical specialties and has demonstrated that medical school preparation in musculoskeletal medicine might be inadequate. The objectives of the present study were to assess podiatric surgical resident performance on this examination and to assess podiatric surgical residency director opinions of the level of importance of the test subject areas. A total of 117 podiatric surgical residents from 15 residency programs completed the 25-question examination. The residents scored a mean ± standard deviation of 60.32% ± 12.60% (range 22.00% to 92.00%). On the 7 questions rated by podiatric residency directors as ≥8 on a 10-point scale of relative importance, this score improved to 84.92% ± 11.93% (range 39.29% to 100.0%). Senior level residents did not outperform junior level residents (60.76% versus 60.44%; p = .898), and those who had completed a general orthopedics rotation at some point in their education did not outperform those who had not (61.12% versus 58.64%; p = .370). The podiatric residency directors assigned a mean ± standard deviation importance score of 6.97 ± 2.07 out of 10 for the 25 questions and suggested a mean ± standard deviation passing score of 69.14% ± 9.03% for the examination. The results of the present investigation provide original data on podiatric surgical resident performance on a basic competency examination in musculoskeletal medicine. Although the residents scored well for some specific test areas, the overall performance was similar to that of previous iterations of the examination given to general surgery and internal medicine residents. The lower scores compared with those from the orthopedic and physical therapy specialties might indicate a need for improved general musculoskeletal medicine education within the podiatric curriculum.