K. Hancock1, T. Williams1, V. Klimberg1, S. Tran1 1University Of Texas Medical Branch,Department Of Surgery,Galveston, TX, USA
Introduction: General Surgery programs around the nation have several hours of protected education time every week. Usage of this time is variable in both content quality and yield for learners. Many programs have a curriculum in place that only follows a textbook or American Board for Surgery In-Training Examination (ABSITE) study resource. We hypothesized that using a Jeopardy!© game in educational conference would encourage participation at weekly conferences and stimulate residents to engage in self-learning.
Methods: At a single institution, during protected education conference, residents played an hour-long Surgical Jeopardy game. The game occurred every six weeks, with topics aimed to summarize high yield topics discussed during the previous six weeks’ worth of didactic learning. A 5-point Likert scale survey was completed by general surgery residents, which included questions to discern resident feelings about the utility of the game format for learning. The ABSITE scores were also evaluated from the year before and the year after the game was implemented.
Results: A total of 24 general surgery residents took the survey with a 75% response rate. 75% of surveyed residents found that the game format encouraged additional reading, and 71% thought the game stimulated interest in learning. Also, 83% of surveyed residents thought the Surgical Jeopardy format was either a fun or an effective way to learn General Surgery topics. 83% of residents thought the game format helped with retention of general surgery knowledge. Improvements in ABSITE scores were seen in the year following implementation of Surgical Jeopardy, with the frequency of general surgery residents scoring above the 70th percentile increasing from 8 to 10. Additionally, the number of residents scoring below the 30th percentile decreased from 13 to 11.
Conclusion: Our survey demonstrates a perceived benefit of the Surgical Jeopardy format for educational conference in general surgery resident training. Implementation of Surgical Jeopardy is correlated with improvement of ABSITE scores. Our format for Surgical Jeopardy may be widely adopted and implemented, expeditiously, for the immediate benefit of stimulating self-directed adult learning for residents.
