Refining the evaluation of operating room performance.

Purpose: An accurate and consistent evaluation of resident operative performance is necessary but difficult to achieve. This study continues the examination of the Southern Illinois University (SIU) operative performance rating system (OPRS) by studying additional factors that may influence reliability, accuracy, and interpretability of results.

Methods: OPRS evaluations of surgical residents by faculty at SIU, from 2001 to 2008, were analyzed for the most frequently rated procedures to determine (1) the elapsed time from the procedure until completion of rating, (2) the patterns in responses of procedure-specific and global surgical skills items, and (3) whether particular evaluating surgeons differed in their stringency of ratings of resident operative performance.

Skills coaches as part of the educational team: a randomized controlled trial of teaching of a basic surgical skill in the laboratory setting.

Background: The aim of this study was to compare the laboratory teaching of a basic technical skill by a nonphysician skills coach and a faculty surgeon.

Methods: Medical students were randomized to instruction of skin suturing in the skills laboratory by a faculty surgeon or by a nonphysician skills coach. Testing of performance occurred at 3 time points.