Integrated studies on the use of cognitive task analysis to capture surgical expertise for central venous catheter placement and open cricothyrotomy

BackgroundCognitive task analysis (CTA) methods were used for 2 surgical procedures to determine (1) the extent that experts omitted critical information, (2) the number of experts required to capture the optimalamount of information, and (3) the effectiveness of a CTA-informed curriculum.MethodsSix expert physicians for both the central venous catheter placement and open cricothyrotomy were interviewed. The transcripts were coded, corrected, and aggregated as a “gold standard.” The information captured for each surgeon was then analyzed against the gold standard.ResultsExperts omitted an average of 34% of the decisions for the central venous catheter and 77% of the decisions for the Cric. Three to 4 experts were required to capture the optimal amount of information. A significant positive effect on performance (t[21] = 2.08, P = .050), and self-efficacy ratings (t[18] = 2.38, P = .029) were found for the CTA-informed curriculum for cricothyrotomy.ConclusionsCTA is an effective method to capture expertise in surgery and a valuable component to improve surgical training.