Resident Endoscopy Experience Correlates Poorly with Performance on a Virtual Reality Simulator.

 Endoscopy training has become increasingly emphasized during general surgery residency as reflected by introduction of the Fundamentals of Endoscopic Surgery (FES) examination, which includes testing of skills on virtual reality (VR) simulators. Although studies exist to assess the ability of the simulator to differentiate between novices and experienced endoscopists, it is not well understood how simulators can differentiate skills among resident cohort.  To assess the utility of the VR simulator, we evaluated the correlation between resident endoscopy experience and performance on two VR simulator colonoscopy modules on the GI-BRONCH Mentor (Simbionix Ltd, Airport City, Israel).

Surgical Skills Olympiad: A 4-Year Experience in a General Surgery Residency Program.

 The acquisition of operative skills is the critical defining component of general surgery training. Performing simulated tasks has been shown to increase a resident's technical skills. As such, we devised the Surgical Skills Olympiad, an annual simulation-based skills competition.

A Resident-Driven Mobile Evaluation System Can Be Used to Augment Traditional Surgery Rotation Evaluations.

Background: The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education requires residents to receive milestone-based evaluations in key areas. Shortcomings of the traditional evaluation system (TES) are a low completion rate and delay in completion. We hypothesized that adoption of a mobile evaluation system (MES) would increase the number of evaluations completed and improve their timeliness.