Assessing resident surgical competency in urology using a global rating scale

Urology Resident Autonomy in the Veterans Affairs Healthcare System

PURPOSE

Surgical resident autonomy in procedures has been eroding over time, due to multiple factors that include duty hour restrictions, focus on operating time, complication rate, and trust among supervising physicians. This study examines whether urology residents at the Veterans Affairs hospitals (VA) have experienced decreased surgical autonomy and contributing factors.

METHODS

The national VA Surgical Quality Improvement Program (VASQIP) was queried for the most common urologic procedures between 2004 to 2019 with resident involvement. The most frequent surgeries were transurethral resection of prostate (TURP); transurethral resection of small, medium, or large tumor (TURBT); photo vaporization of prostate, scrotal surgery, and ureteral stent placement. The cases were stratified by resident involvement: attending as primary (AP), attending and resident (AR), resident as primary (RP).

RESULTS

93,756 urology cases were selected from 2004 to 2019. The above procedures accounted for 76.5% of all urologic cases. The percentage of RP cases decreased from 44.4% of cases in 2004 to 25.1% in 2019. Reduction in RP cases was seen in all of the 7 examined urology cases. Cases with resident involvement had patients with more medical comorbidities. Mean operative times were not significantly different. The 30-day composite complications and 30-day return to operating room were greatest for AR. Postoperative morbidity and all-cause mortality were not significantly different.

CONCLUSIONS

Urology resident autonomy has decreased within the VA healthcare system over the past 15 years. Mean operative times and postoperative complications are not significantly different in cases with residents as primary surgeon.

Surgical Artificial Intelligence in Urology: Educational Applications

Surgical education has seen immense change recently. Increased demand for iterative evaluation of trainees from medical school to independent practice has led to the generation of an overwhelming amount of data related to an individual's competency. Artificial intelligence has been proposed as a solution to automate and standardize the ability of stakeholders to assess the technical and nontechnical abilities of a surgical trainee. In both the simulation and clinical environments, evidence supports the use of machine learning algorithms to both evaluate trainee skill and provide real-time and automated feedback, enabling a shortened learning curve for many key procedural skills and ensuring patient safety.

A SWOT Analysis of Urology Residency

PURPOSE OF REVIEW

Residency training is a pivotal educational step on the road to becoming a urologist. It combines both clinical and surgical instruction with the goal of producing proficient and compassionate surgeons and clinicians. In this review, we employ a SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) to investigate the current state of urologic residency training.

RECENT FINDINGS

Urology remains an attractive and competitive residency with varied and complex surgical and medical training. Areas for improvement include standardization of evaluation and feedback, improving resident wellness, and expanding the use of surgical simulation. Workforce issues such as the predicted urologist supply deficit and poor readiness to enter the business of medicine can be addressed at the residency level. Failure to attract and retain underrepresented minorities, increasing burden of student debt, and resident burnout are serious threats to our field. Using a SWOT analysis we identify key areas for expansion, underscore valuable strengths, and provide a working roadmap for improvement of these formative years.

Utility of self-competency ratings during residency training in family medicine education-emerging countries: findings from Japan

BACKGROUND

Family medicine education-emerging countries face challenges in demonstrating a new program's ability to train residents in womb-to-tomb care and resident ability to provide such care competently. We illustrate the experience of a new Japanese family medicine program with resident self-competency assessments.

METHODS

In this longitudinal cross-sectional study, residents completed self-competency assessment surveys online during 2011-2015. Each year of training, residents self-ranked their competence using a 100-point visual analog scale for 142 conditions: acute (30 conditions), chronic (28 conditions) women's health (eight conditions), and geriatrics/home (12 conditions) care; procedures (38 types); health promotion (21 conditions).

RESULTS

Twenty residents (11 women, 9 men) participated. Scores improved annually by training year from baseline to graduation; the mean composite score advanced from 31 to 65%. All subcategories showed improvement. Scores for care involving acute conditions rose from 49 to 75% (26% increase); emergency procedures, 46-65% (19% increase); chronic care, 33-73% (40% increase); women's health, 16-59% (43% increase); procedural care, 26-56% (30% increase); geriatrics care-procedures, 8-65% (57% increase); health promotion, 21-63% (42% increase). Acute care, chronic care, and health promotion achieved the highest levels. Women's health care, screenings, and geriatrics experienced the greatest increase. Health promotion gains occurred most dramatically in the final residency year.

CONCLUSIONS

A resident self-competency assessment provides a simple and practical way to conduct an assessment of skills, to monitor skills over time, to use the data to inform residency program improvement, and to demonstrate the breadth of family medicine training to policymakers, and other stakeholders.

Are 2 Years Enough? Exploring Technical Skills Acquisition Among General Surgery Residents in Brazil

Phenomenon: Recent studies have shown that up to 40% of the General Surgery (GS) residents are not confident with their surgical skills. There is concern that residents are at risk of receiving inadequate training due to the low number of operations they perform. In Brazil, although all GS residents receive by law the Board Certification at the end of their programs, the assessment of their technical skills is not mandatory in Medical Residency programs' training. Consequently, our concern was that current GS medical residency format might be insufficient to create competent and autonomous general surgery residents after 2 years of regular training. Hence, the aim was to assess GS residents' surgical skills in their final months of training to evaluate the present format of GS residency programs in Brazil.

APPROACH

Trained surgical faculty members directly observed 11 operations of varying difficulty performed by 2nd-year regular GS residents and by 4th-year residents in the optional Advanced Program in General Surgery. Participants were located at 3 university and 3 nonuniversity hospitals in Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo (Brazil's largest cities). Surgical skills were assessed using an internally developed observation checklist reviewed by subject matter experts.

FINDINGS

Sixty residents (46 regular 2nd-year trainees and 14 advanced 4th-year trainees) were assessed on performing 499 operations. Only 10 residents (17%), all advanced 4th-year residents, satisfactorily performed all operations and were considered eligible for the Board Certification. Even after excluding the 2 operations of greatest difficulty, only 24 regular 2nd-year residents (52%) satisfactorily performed the other 9 operations. Residents from hospitals with open Emergency Departments performed better than those from hospitals without Emergency Departments. Insights: The results of this pilot study suggest that residents with 2 years of training are not prepared for independent high-level surgical practice. The current formatting of regular GS residency programs in Brazil (2 years) may be insufficient to train experts in general surgery.

Urology Residency Training in Italy: Results of the First National Survey

BACKGROUND

Numerous surveys have been performed to determine the competence and the confidence of residents. However, there is no data available on the condition of Italian residents in urology.

OBJECTIVE

To investigate the status of training among Italian residents in urology regarding scientific activity and surgical exposure.

DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS

A web-based survey that included 445 residents from all of the 25 Italian Residency Programmes was conducted between September 2015 and November 2015.

OUTCOME MEASUREMENTS AND STATISTICAL ANALYSIS

The main outcomes were represented by scientific activity, involvement in surgical procedures, and overall satisfaction.

RESULTS AND LIMITATIONS

In total, 324 out of 445 (72.8%) residents completed the survey. Overall, 104 (32%) residents had not published any scientific manuscripts, 148 (46%) published ≤5, 38 (12%) ≤10, 26 (8%) ≤15, four (1%) ≤20, and four (1%) >20 manuscripts, respectively. We did not observe any differences when residents were stratified by sex (p=0.5). Stent positioning (45.7%), extracorporeal shock wave lithotripsy (30.9%), transurethral resection of bladder tumor (33.0%), hydrocelectomy (24.7%), varicocelectomy (17%), ureterolithotripsy (14.5%), and orchiectomy (12.3%) were the surgical procedures more frequently performed by residents. Overall, 272 residents (84%) expressed a good satisfaction for urology specialty, while 178 (54.9%) expressed a good satisfaction for their own residency programme. We observed a statistically decreased trend for good satisfaction for urology specialty according to the postgraduate year (p=0.02).

CONCLUSIONS

Italian Urology Residency Programmes feature some heavy limitations regarding scientific activity and surgical exposure. Nonetheless, satisfaction rate for urology specialty remains high. Further improvements in Residency Programmes should be made in order to align our schools to others that are actually more challenging.

PATIENT SUMMARY

In this web-based survey, Italian residents in urology showed limited scientific productivity and low involvement in surgical procedures. Satisfaction for urology specialty remains high, demonstrating continuous interest in this field of study from residents.