Is Surgical Resident Comfort Level Associated With Experience?

BackgroundThe Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) has placed great emphasis on residents learning to identify their training needs and to develop learning strategies to address these needs. In surgery, residents can play an active role in identifying training needs through self-assessment of their procedural skills. Our study contributes to the growing body of literature regarding practice-based learning and improvement by attempting to determine if surgery resident experience is associated with comfort level and perceived training needs.MethodsTwenty-five general surgery residents completed a surgical experience survey, which asked them to indicate the range of times they performed a procedure, their comfort level in performing the procedure, and the quality of training they felt they received. Residents were given a survey with cases appropriate for their postgraduate year. A Cochran-Armitage trend test was used to evaluate the trends between comfort level and experience, and training needs and experience. A P value of 0.05 was considered statistical significance in all analyses.ResultsResident comfort level demonstrated a positive trend compared with case volume both in the self-reported survey and ACGME case log (P values < 0.001). Additionally, higher levels of training were associated with increased comfort level (P value = 0.05). Perceived training needs and experience were also associated (P value < 0.001), demonstrating that with increased experience, residents felt that their training needs were being met.ConclusionOur study demonstrates that residents are able to assess their comfort level and training needs based on both actual and perceived experience. The procedural survey has been a useful tool for resident self-assessment in that residents are able to play a more active role in their education by developing appropriate learning plans.