A. D. Caine1, A. Kunac1, J. Schwartzman1, A. M. Merchant1, D. H. Livingston1 1Rutgers New Jersey Medical School,General Surgery,Newark, NJ, USA
Introduction:
Resident competition has been shown to increase usage of simulators for skills training and resident performance on simulation tasks. We examined the four-year experience with our “Surgical Skills Olympiad” at a large academic surgical residency in the Northeast. We hypothesize that residents perform better at Olympiad tasks since its implementation due to the competitive nature of the event.
Methods:
Surgical Olympiad is a yearly competition between teams formed with members of each post graduate year (PGY) class. Competition tasks are PGY specific: knot tying for PGY-1, basic FLS for PGY-2, hand-sewn bowel anastomosis for PGY-3, vascular anastomosis for PGY-4 and advanced laparoscopic skills for PGY-5. Competition task scores over a four-year period (2014-2017) were analyzed. In addition, a survey of teaching faculty who participated in Olympiad was conducted.
Results:
Ten faculty members responded to the survey, for a response rate of 62.5%. Fifty percent of respondents felt that the caliber of surgical skills demonstrated at Olympiad has increased since its implementation. Ninety percent agreed that Surgical Olympiad is a good way for residents to assess their skills against their peers. Over four years there was an improvement in mean scores for knot tying (p<0.05), bowel anastomosis (p=0.08), and advanced laparoscopic skills (p<0.05).
Conclusion:
Faculty perceive improvement in resident surgical skills since the adoption of Surgical Skills Olympiad and objective measures of resident skills suggest that the annual competition has led to improved performance. More data is needed to assess simulator use before and after Olympiad and long term surgical skill retention.