Journal of surgical education
-
Downloadable audio files called podcasts have become popular within many areas of medical education. They can be a valuable supplement to traditional teaching methods. Medical educators may wish to incorporate podcasts into their curriculum and disseminate their work to a larger audience, but may not know how. ⋯ Medical education podcasts are a feasible way of disseminating educational materials to learners. We demonstrate sustainability and acceptance of this learning platform.
-
The coronavirus crisis hit at the beginning of the Complex General Surgical Oncology Fellowship (CGSO) and Breast Oncology Fellowship interview cycles. Within 2 weeks, nearly all programs, including ours, switched to a virtual platform for the remainder of the season. Given that social distancing will remain in place for the foreseeable future, it is possible that all residency and fellowship interviews will need to be conducted virtually. ⋯ A virtual "happy hour" was conducted to provide an opportunity for candidates and current trainees to interact. Our virtual interview day schedule mimicked our traditional in person interview day, and we always had a back-up plan for completing the interview if the virtual platform became unstable. While many programs would not choose to perform virtual interviews, we felt that by conducting them in the methods we describe, we were able to closely replicate our traditional interview day and appreciate the candidacy of the applicants.
-
YouTube has become the preferred resource for trainees in otolaryngology to prepare for surgery. This study aimed to compare the evaluation by 2 attending physicians and 2 resident physicians of the quality of videos on YouTube on neck dissection, a key indicator case in head and neck surgery. The authors aimed to assess the quality and quantity of YouTube videos available for development of a virtual surgical educational curriculum for trainees in otolaryngology. ⋯ Online videos of neck dissection represent an increasingly ubiquitous and appropriate resource for trainees in learning otolaryngology key indicator cases. While free-to-access video repositories, such as YouTube, have become increasingly popular among trainees as a primary resource for learning and preparing for surgical cases, they lack consistent quality and as such, global efforts should be taken to improve the breadth and depth of educational video content in otolaryngology.
-
Where Has All the Complexity Gone? An Analysis of the Modern Surgical Resident Operative Experience.
The operative experience of today's general surgery (GS) residents are changing. The Surgical Council on Resident Education (SCORE) was founded to provide a standardized, competency-based curriculum. We set out to evaluate resident operative experience in core and advanced operations. ⋯ There has been an increase in core operative experience with a concurrent decrease in advanced operative experience of graduating GS residents. These findings highlight the continued narrowing of the operative experience for trainees, with increasing focus on GS and less on subspecialty domains. Ongoing efforts to look beyond operative volume to ensure competency of graduates will prove beneficial.
-
Established primary goals of general surgery subinternships are improvement in patient care and medical knowledge. However, the secondary gains such as obtaining recommendation letters and forming relationships are apparent but poorly defined. We sought the opinion of general surgery program directors (PDs) on the secondary purposes of subinternships. Our aim is to aide mentors and students to optimize the subinternship experience relative to the residency application process. ⋯ Our study suggests subinternships significantly impact a student's application to general surgery residency, clarifying a secondary role for these rotations. Subinternships are important for PDs to assess a student for ranking at their program. All students should pursue a letter of recommendation from subinternship faculty, when possible, as they can heavily influence the interview selection process. Away rotations should only be recommended for those students who need to strengthen their application.