Surgical intern survival skills curriculum as an intern: does it help?

Background: The transition from medical student to surgical intern is fraught with anxiety. We implemented a surgical intern survival skills curriculum to alleviate this through a series of lectures and interactive sessions. The purpose of this pilot study was to evaluate its effectiveness.

Methods: This was a prospective observational pilot study of our surgical intern survival skills curriculum, the components of which included professionalism, medical documentation, pharmacy highlights, radiographic interpretations, nutrition, and mock clinical pages. The participants completed pre-course and post-course surveys to assess their confidence levels in the elements addressed using a 5-point Likert scale (1 = unsatisfactory, 5 = excellent). A P value of less than .05 was considered significant.

Results: In 2009, 8 interns participated in the surgical intern survival skills curriculum. Fifty percent were female and their mean age was 27.5 ± 1.5 years. Of 33 elements assessed, interns rated themselves as more confident in 27 upon completion of the course.

Conclusions: The implementation of a surgical intern survival skills curriculum significantly improved the confidence levels of general surgery interns and seemed to ease the transition from medical student to surgical intern.