Should Obtaining Informed Consent Be Considered an Entrustable Professional Activity? Insights From Whether and How Attendings Entrust Surgical Trainees.

Purpose: Because residents are frequently delegated the task of obtaining consent early in their training, the American Association of Medical Colleges describes "obtaining informed consent" as a core entrustable professional activity (EPA) for medical school graduates. However, prior studies demonstrated that residents frequently perform this task without receiving formal instruction or assessment of competency. This study sought to understand how attending physicians decide to delegate obtaining informed consent for surgical procedures to trainees.

Sexual Harassment in Surgery-Is Operating Room Culture the Culprit?

Background: Sexual harassment is a known problem in surgical training and a focus of growing attention in recent years. However, the environments where sexual harassment in surgical training most commonly takes place are not yet described.

Methods: An anonymous, voluntary, electronic survey was distributed to surgical trainees, and all programs nationally were invited to participate.

How Did We Get Here and Where Are We Going? Career Trajectories of United States General Surgery Residency Program Directors.

Objective: To develop the future of United States (US) surgical education leadership, surgical trainees and early career faculty who aspire to become program directors (PDs) must understand the potential career pathways and requisite skills and experience to become a general surgery residency PD. The objective of this study was to understand the demographics, career experiences, and professional satisfaction of US PDs in general surgery.

Design: An anonymous, cross-sectional survey utilizing a novel instrument.

Misperceptions and Missed Opportunities: A Qualitative Analysis of Barriers to Evaluating Surgical Teachers.

Objective: Teaching skills can be improved with written evaluations from learners. In addition to this primary purpose, teaching assessments are used in other aspects of faculty development including appointments, advancement and in some cases, compensation. Surgical trainees' willingness to provide meaningful assessments of their teachers is variable but the reasons for this are ill-defined.

So You Want to be a Program Director? Career Paths of Colon and Rectal Surgery Residency Program Directors.

Background: The trajectory of colon and rectal surgery residency program director (PD) career paths has not been well described, leaving those who aspire for the position with minimal guidance. The goal of this study is to characterize their career paths in the United States. By understanding their experiences, the path to train and educate the next generation of colon and rectal surgeons as a PD will be better illuminated.

Update on the Financial Well-Being of Surgical Residents in New England.

Background: Poor personal financial health has been linked to key components of health including burnout, substance abuse, and worsening personal relationships. Understanding the state of resident financial health is key to improving their overall well-being.

Study Design: A secondary analysis of a survey of New England general surgery residents was performed to understand their financial well-being.

How I Learned is How I Teach - Perspectives on How Faculty Surgeons Approach Informed Consent Education.

Objective: To understand the variability of surgical attending experience and perspectives regarding informed consent and how it impacts resident education DESIGN: A novel survey was distributed electronically to explore faculty surgeon's personal learning experience, knowledge, clinical practice, teaching preferences and beliefs regarding informed consent. Chi-square and Kruskal-Wallis testing was performed to look for associations and a cluster analysis was performed to elucidate additional patterns among.

Setting: Single, tertiary, university-affiliated health care system (Yale New Haven Health in Connecticut), including 6 teaching hospitals.

Surgical Residents' Awareness of the Costs of Common Operating Room Supplies.

Background: The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education mandates that residency programs incorporate cost awareness into patient care. This presents a challenge for surgical residents because they must understand operating room costs in addition to other expenses. Trainees' understanding of operating room supply costs is not well understood.

Learning Environment is the Prevailing Factor in Surgical Residents' Favorite Rotations.

Objective: Understand the characteristics of residents' favorite rotations to improve the ability of educators to maximize positive learning experiences.

Design: Novel cross-sectional survey developed through thematic analysis of focus groups with residents using 4-point Likert scales ranked from "Not at all important" to "Extremely important."

Setting: Single university-affiliated urban hospital PARTICIPANTS: Clinical surgical residents BACKGROUND: Resident assessments of learning experiences vary between rotations leading to the development of "favorite" rotations.

Update on the Personal and Professional Well-Being of Surgical Residents in New England.

Background: Surgical culture has shifted to recognize the importance of resident well-being. This is the first study to longitudinally track regional surgical resident well-being over 5 years.

Study Design: An anonymous cross-sectional, multi-institutional survey of New England general surgery residents using novel and published instruments to create three domains: health maintenance, burnout, and work environment.

Transplant Fellowship and Presenting at a Transplant-Specific Conference.

Introduction: The ASTS implemented a task force in 2018 to increase residents' interest in careers in organ transplantation. National meetings offer important experiences that can increase interest. The present study examines an association that exists between presenting at a major transplant surgery meeting and a trainee's likelihood of pursuing a career in transplant surgery.

The Potential Application of Mindset Theory to Surgical Education.

Mindset theory proposes that individuals hold a range of beliefs regarding the malleability of attributes such as intellect and skill. Within surgery, mindset theory has been discussed as a way of understanding achievement in both the cognitive and technical aspects of learning surgery. A review of the literature reveals a limited body of research that has addressed the mindsets of surgeons or by extension, tied those mindsets to outcomes.

Video Coaching in Surgical Education: Utility, Opportunities, and Barriers to Implementation.

Objective: This review discusses the literature on Video-Based Coaching (VBC) and explores the barriers to widespread implementation.

Design: A search was performed on Scopus and PubMed for the terms "operation," "operating room," "surgery," "resident," "house staff," "graduate medical education," "teaching," "coaching," "assessment," "reflection," "camera," and "video" on July 27, 2021, in English. This yielded 828 results.

Video Coaching: A National Survey of Surgical Residency Program Directors.

Objective: Video coaching has been demonstrated to improve resident and attending skills and is overwhelmingly well received by the participants. However, misperceptions about its utility among those who do not use video coaching may be a barrier to widespread implementation.

Design: Cross-sectional web-based survey SETTING: National survey PARTICIPANTS: Surgical program director members of the Association of Program Directors of Surgery STUDY DESIGN: The survey was developed via a deductive approach after a literature review and was piloted with surgical attendings and residents.

Effect of Surgical Team Communication on Adherence to Opioid Discharge Guidelines in Post-Operative Inpatients.

Objective: Current opioid prescribing guidelines state that post-operative inpatients who do not receive opioids in the 24 hours preceding discharge do not require an opioid prescription on discharge. This study was designed to assess providers' understanding of opioid discharge guidelines and explore drivers of adherence.

Design: An electronic survey was released which assessed knowledge of opioid discharge guidelines and probed surgical team communication.

Characterizing the social media footprint of general surgery residency programs.

Background: The medical community has increasingly embraced social media for a variety of purposes, including trainee education, research dissemination, professional networking, and recruitment of trainees and faculty. Platform choice and usage patterns appear to vary by specialty and purpose, but few studies comprehensively assess programs' social media presence. Prior studies assessed general surgery departments' Twitter use but omitted additional social media platforms and residency-specific accounts.

What's it Worth?: The Costs and Benefits of an Initiative to Decrease Post-Call Fatigued Driving Among Surgery Residents.

Background: In 2017 the ACGME enacted new regulations requiring sponsoring institutions to ensure "safe transportation options for residents who may be too fatigued to safely return home." We investigate here the impact of a pilot "Safe Ride" program designed to mitigate the risks of fatigued driving.

Methods: During a 2-month pilot period at a single university-affiliated general surgery residency with four urban clinical sites, all residents (n = 72) were encouraged to hire a rideshare (e.

Residency Program Use of Social Media in the COVID-19 Era: An Applicant's Perspective.

General surgery residency programs' use of social media has exploded since early spring 2020, as it became clear that the COVID-19 pandemic would prevent away rotations and in-person interviews. Faced with the prospect of ranking programs they cannot visit, applicants are becoming reliant on programs' use of social media to showcase program culture, now a key recruitment tool. However, proper etiquette for applicant engagement with programs' social media accounts is unclear.

Creating an Opioid Recommendation Card for Trainees: Methods, Use, and Impact.

Background: In academic hospitals, surgical residents write most of the postoperative prescriptions; yet, few residents are trained on postoperative analgesia. This leads to wide variability in practices and often excess opioid prescribing. We sought to create an opioid guideline pocket card for surgical residents to access when prescribing opioids postoperatively and to evaluate the impact of this initiative.

Results of COVID-minimal Surgical Pathway During Surge-phase of COVID-19 Pandemic.

Objective: The outcomes of patients treated on the COVID-minimal pathway were evaluated during a period of surging COVID-19 hospital admissions, to determine the safety of continuing to perform urgent operations during the pandemic.

Summary Of Background Data: Crucial treatments were delayed for many patients during the COVID-19 pandemic, over concerns for hospital-acquired COVID-19 infections. To protect cancer patients whose survival depended on timely surgery, a "COVID-minimal pathway" was created.

Driving Safety Among Surgical Residents in the Era of Duty Hour Restrictions.

Objective: Fatigued driving is a known contributor to adverse motor vehicle events (AMVEs), defined as crashes and near misses. Surgical trainees work long and irregular hours; the safety of work-related driving since the introduction of work hour regulations has not yet been studied in this population. We aimed to assess the impact of fatigue on driving safety and explore perceptions of a funded rideshare program.

Higher risk of urinary tract infections in renal transplant recipients receiving pentamidine versus trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole (TMP-SMX) for Pneumocystis pneumonia prophylaxis.

Urinary tract infection (UTI) is one of the most common infectious complications among renal transplant patients. Trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole (TMP-SMX) is routinely used as first-line prophylaxis against Pneumocystis pneumonia (PCP) and other opportunistic infections including UTI. Aerosolized pentamidine is an alternate agent used for PCP prophylaxis; however, it does not provide coverage against uropathogens.

Earlier Is Better: Evaluating the Timing of Tracheostomy After Liver Transplantation.

Background: Respiratory failure after orthotopic liver transplantation is associated with increased mortality and prolonged hospitalization.

Methods: A retrospective analysis was conducted through the query of the National In-patient Sample for subjects who underwent orthotopic liver transplantation and tracheostomy after transplantation from 2000 to 2011. Tracheostomies by post-transplantation day 14 were considered "early," whereas those after day 14 were "routine.