A Randomized Crossover Trial Evaluating the Impact of Cultural Dexterity Training on Surgical Residents' Knowledge, Cross-Cultural Care, Skills, and Beliefs: The Provider Awareness and Cultural Dexterity Training for Surgeons (PACTS) Trial.

Objectives: This trial examines the impact of the Provider Awareness and Cultural dexterity Toolkit for Surgeons (PACTS) curriculum on surgical residents' knowledge, cross-cultural care, skills, and beliefs.

Background: Cross-cultural training of providers may reduce health care outcome disparities, but its effectiveness in surgical trainees is unknown.

Methods: PACTS focuses on developing skills needed for building trust, working with patients with limited English proficiency, optimizing informed consent, and managing pain.

Strategies and Challenges of a Safe Fireplace Program in Rural Kenya: A Qualitative Study.

There is a lack of information on effective burn prevention strategies. The objective of this study was to examine a safe fireplace program, as a method of burn prevention, in a resource-limited setting. We conducted a qualitative, phenomenological study at a community health and development program for a rural population in Kenya.

Changing Surgical Culture Through Surgical Education: Introduction to the PACTS Trial.

The Provider Awareness and Cultural dexterity Toolkit for Surgeons (PACTS) curriculum was developed to improve surgical resident cultural dexterity, with the goal of promoting health equity by developing cognitive skills to adapt to individual patients' needs to ensure personal, patient-centered surgical care through structured educational interventions for surgical residents. Funded by the National Institute of Health (NIH)'s National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities, PACTS addresses surgical disparities in patient care by incorporating varied educational interventions, with investigation of both traditional and nontraditional educational outcomes such as patient-reported and clinical outcomes, across multiple hospitals and regions. The unique attributes of this multicenter, multiphased research trial will not only impact future surgical education research, but hopefully improve how surgeons learn nontechnical skills that modernize surgical culture and surgical care.

American Burn Association Strategic Quality Summit 2022: Setting the Direction for the Future.

The American Burn Association (ABA) hosted a Burn Care Strategic Quality Summit (SQS) in an ongoing effort to advance the quality of burn care. The goals of the SQS were to discuss and describe characteristics of quality burn care, identify goals for advancing burn care, and develop a roadmap to guide future endeavors while integrating current ABA quality programs. Forty multidisciplinary members attended the two-day event.

EQIP's First Year: A Step Closer to Higher Quality in Surgical Education.

Objective: To describe the first year of the Educational Quality Improvement Program (EQIP) DESIGN: The Educational Quality Improvement Program (EQIP) was formed by the Association of Program Directors in Surgery (APDS) in 2018 as a continuous educational quality improvement program. Over 18 months, thirteen discrete goals for the establishment of EQIP were refined and executed through a collaborative effort involving leaders in surgical education. Alpha and beta pilots were conducted to refine the data queries and collection processes.

The APDS General Surgery Education Quality Improvement Program (EQIP).

Background: Although the ACGME has called for outcomes-based evaluation of residency programs, few metrics or benchmarks exist connecting educational processes with resident educational outcomes. To address this deficiency, a national Education Quality Improvement Program (EQIP) for General Surgery training is proposed.

Methods: We describe the initial efforts to create this platform.

Neighborhood risk: Socioeconomic status and hospital admission for pediatric burn patients.

Background: Burn injury continues to cause significant morbidity and mortality in the US pediatric population. Many studies using inpatient samples have found a relationship between low socioeconomic status (SES) and burn injury. The purpose of our study was to evaluate the association between SES and the likelihood of admission for Emergency Department (ED) visits for pediatric burn injury.

Referral Patterns of Burn Injury in Rural Kenya.

Burn injury represents a substantial burden of disease in resource-limited settings. Kenya has no formal trauma system and referral practices for burn injuries are not well understood. The purpose of this study was to determine the factors associated with burn injury referrals in rural Kenya.

Beyond the Surgical Time-Out: A National Needs Assessment of Preoperative Communication in US General Surgery Residency Programs.

Objective: Perioperative communication is critical for procedural learning. In order to develop a periprocedural faculty development tool, we aimed to characterize the current status of preoperative communication in US General Surgery residency programs.

Design: After Association of Program Directors in Surgery approval, a survey was distributed to general surgery programs.

Concordance of Resident and Patient Perceptions of Culturally Dexterous Patient Care Skills.

Purpose: Disparities in surgical care persist. To mitigate these disparities, we are implementing and testing the Provider Awareness and Cultural dexterity Toolkit for Surgeons (PACTS), a curriculum to improve surgical residents' cultural dexterity during clinical encounters. We analyzed baseline data to look for concordance between residents' self-perceived cultural dexterity skills and patients' perceptions of their skills.

Ad astra per aspera (Through Hardships to the Stars): Lessons Learned from the First National Virtual APDS Meeting, 2020.

Objective: After COVID-19 rendered in-person meetings for national societies impossible in the spring of 2020, the leadership of the Association of Program Directors in Surgery (APDS) innovated via a virtual format in order to hold its national meeting.

Design: APDS leadership pre-emptively considered factors that would be important to attendees including cost, value, time, professional commitments, education, sharing of relevant and current information, and networking.

Setting: The meeting was conducted using a variety of virtual formats including a web portal for entry, pre-ecorded poster and oral presentations on the APDS website, interactive panels via a web conferencing platform, and livestreaming.

A Full-Thickness Burn in a Teenager Resulting from Prolonged Contact with a Mobile Phone Charging Cube: A Case Report.

We present a case of a teenager who suffered a full-thickness burn following prolonged contact with a mobile phone charging cube. The patient required primary surgical excision and closure of the wound resulting in a good clinical outcome. There have been multiple reports in the literature of burns resulting from lithium batteries; however, this appears to be the first case report of a full thickness burn resulting from a mobile phone charging cube.

The Resident Outcome Project: Increased Academic Productivity Associated with a Formal Clinical Research Curriculum.

Purpose: A formal 2-year clinical research project in conjunction with a system-based practice and practice-based learning and improvement curriculum was initiated for all residents in our program. Within the structure of this formal clinical research curriculum, residents are required to develop a research hypothesis, develop an appropriate study design, collect and analyze data, and present a completed project.

Methods: At the end of the PGY1 year, residents select a project with an emphasis on quality improvement or clinical outcomes.

Intoxication and Flame Burn Injuries in Young Adults in the United States.

Flame injuries are the primary cause of burns in young adults. Although drug and alcohol intoxication has been associated with other types of trauma, its role in burn injury has not been well described in this population. The purpose of this study was to investigate the association of intoxication and flame burn injuries in young adults in the United States.

"Tweet"-format reflective writing: A hidden needs assessment?

Background: Medical student reflection is integral for professional development. Preliminary findings suggest that short-format writing promotes reflection and identifies impactful experiences. We sought to determine whether reflective writing could be used as a clerkship needs assessment.

Lessons Learned From the Surgical Morbidity and Mortality Conference.

Objective: The Morbidity and Mortality (M&M) conference is both a quality improvement and an educational conference. We sought to evaluate the educational and quality improvement value of different learners who attend the surgical M&M conference. Furthermore, we sought to evaluate if an educational intervention directed at medical students (MS) would improve their experience at this conference.

Burn scar regeneration with the "SUFA" (Subcision and Fat Grafting) technique. A prospective clinical study.

Background: Treatment of burn scars with traditional surgical techniques is challenging due to recurrent contractures. Fat grafting has been previously used in small clinical series and results are often biased by lack of scientific validating methods. Fat grafting in clinical practice is often evaluated for its filler properties and rarely scientifically validated for its potential in dermal regeneration.

"Tweet"-Format Writing Is an Effective Tool for Medical Student Reflection.

Objective: Reflective writing during medical education allows for professional growth through retrospective analysis of experiential knowledge. However, these writing assignments can pose a challenge to millennial medical students who are more likely to assimilate knowledge through the use of innovative technology and who prefer their data in a concise format. Here, we present a novel, tweet-style reflective writing assignment to better engage the unique skill set of today's medical students.

Trauma morning report is the ideal environment to teach and evaluate resident communication and sign-outs in the 80 hour work week.

Background: The 80h work week has raised concerns that complications may increase due to multiple sign-outs or poor communication. Trauma Surgery manages complex trauma and acute care surgical patients with rapidly changing physiology, clinical demands and a large volume of data that must be communicated to render safe, effective patient care. Trauma Morning Report format may offer the ideal situation to study and teach sign-outs and resident communication.

Burn Shock and Resuscitation: Proceedings of a Symposium Conducted at the Meeting of the American Burn Association, Chicago, IL, 21 April 2015.

The Special Interest Groups of the American Burn Association provide a forum for interested members of the multidisciplinary burn team to congregate and discuss matters of mutual interest. At the 47th Annual Meeting of the American Burn Association in Chicago, IL, the Fluid Resuscitation Special Interest Group sponsored a special symposium on burn resuscitation. The purpose of the symposium was to review the history, current status, and future direction of fluid resuscitation of patients with burn shock.

Complicated Burn Resuscitation.

More than 4 decades after the creation of the Brooke and Parkland formulas, burn practitioners still argue about which formula is the best. So it is no surprise that there is no consensus about how to resuscitate a thermally injured patient with a significant comorbidity such as heart failure or cirrhosis or how to resuscitate a patient after an electrical or inhalation injury or a patient whose resuscitation is complicated by renal failure. All of these scenarios share a common theme in that the standard rule book does not apply.

Teaching leadership in trauma resuscitation: Immediate feedback from a real-time, competency-based evaluation tool shows long-term improvement in resident performance.

Background: Limited data exist on how to develop resident leadership and communication skills during actual trauma resuscitations.

Methods: An evaluation tool was developed to grade senior resident performance as the team leader during full-trauma-team activations. Thirty actions that demonstrated the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education core competencies were graded on a Likert scale of 1 (poor) to 5 (exceptional).

An early surgical training module for compartment pressure measurement.

Background: We test a novel simulated teaching module's ability to educate junior residents in the assessment of compartment syndrome (CS) and compartment pressure measurement (CPM).

Methods: Twenty-two postgraduate year 1 and postgraduate year 2 surgical residents received a 2-hour didactic and practical teaching module on CS assessment and CPM using a simulated model. A structured teaching session by a postgraduate year 5 surgical resident was assessed by carefully constructed pretest, post-test, and delayed retention tests and a practical testing session by 2 board-certified general surgeons.

American College of Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement Program as a quality-measurement tool for advanced cancer patients.

Background: Multiple studies have shown the significantly increased post-operative morbidity and mortality of patients undergoing palliative operations. It has been proposed by some authors that the American College of Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement Program (ACS-NSQIP) database can be used reliably to develop risk-calculators or as an aid for clinical decision-making in advanced cancer patients. ACS-NSQIP is a population-based database that by design only captures outcomes data for the first 30-day following an operation.