Quang N Nguyen, MBA, Chanaka Kahathuduwa, PhD, Theophilus Pham, MBA, Sarah E Wilson, Amir Aryaie, MD. Texas Tech Health Science Center
Introduction: Endoscopy is an important skill for general surgeons to possess. However, there is lack of training within surgery residency programs. We implemented a one-day endoscopic surgery course with the aim of improving the confidence of surgical residents in performing endoscopic procedures. We also aimed to examine the effect of the exposure to this course on self-reported confidence in performing endoscopic procedures.
Methods and Procedures: The Fundamental of Endoscopic Surgery Course at Texas Tech University Health Science Center is a one-day course consisting of both didactic training and lab training. The didactic part of the course is taught by attending physicians and focuses on the basics of endoscopy, management of upper and lower gastrointestinal (GI) bleed, and techniques to perform a variety of GI endoscopic procedures on swine esophagus and stomach explant. The lab portion of the course allows residents to perform different endoscopic surgical procedures with the attending physicians providing guidance. Residents from PGY-1 to PGY-5 participated in the course. A 14-item questionnaire that measured the self-reported confidence in performing several endoscopic procedures on a 1-5 Likert scale was administered before and after the course
Results: Twenty-two participants successfully completed the training and the questionnaires. A significant improvement was observed in the overall confidence in performing a variety of endoscopic procedures (1.231 ± 0.384, p <0.001). The improvements remained significant even after controlling for the years of postgraduate surgical training (P < 0.001).
Conclusion: The one-day Fundamental of Endoscopic Surgery Course enabled residents to be more confident with endoscopic procedures. Overall, the residents felt that the course was helpful and would like to attend more than one session per year. This course should be held, at least, annually to allow the general surgery residents to become even more confident with this important skill. By being more confident in their surgical endoscopy skills, they will ultimately be able to provide better care for patients.
Presented at the SAGES 2017 Annual Meeting in Houston, TX.
Abstract ID: 86190
Program Number: P345
Presentation Session: iPoster Session (Non CME)
Presentation Type: Poster