Has the creation of a urology residency programme translated in to more surgical exposure for final year residents?

Background: Surgical residency programmes are supposed to enhance resident operative experience. The impact of urology residency was assessed at our institution before and after establishing a structured urology training programme in 2006.

Materials/methods: Log books of final year Urological residents presented for the West African College of Surgeons (WACS) and National Postgraduate Medical College (NPMC) final part II exams from January 2007 to December 2011 at Jos University Teaching Hospital (JUTH) were reviewed. All residents had completed mandatory 3 years of urology training. The records of surgeries performed by residents were extracted. These surgeries were categorized as Endoscopic procedures, open kidney/ureter surgeries, open bladder surgeries, open prostate surgeries, open urethral and open testicular/penile sugeries. The records were compared with records of operated cases in the same category before the commencement of Urology residency training from January 2001 to December 2005. Results were presented as tables and charts. The Students unpaired t-test was used to assess significance. P value of < 0.05 was taken as significant.

Results: There was an overall increase in absolute number of operative cases performed by final year residents in the period after the commencement of the Urology residency programme (n = 596) compared to the period before the training began (n = 381) this however, was not statisically significant (p = 0.3). There was a decline in endoscopic surgeries done by residents after the training begun compared to the era before the training.

Conclusion: Whereas creation of the urology training programme in JUTH has resulted in more operative cases done by trainee urologists, the exposure to endosopic surgeries has declined. This will not augur well for the training programme in the long run. Periodic rieiew of the data should be performed to maintain consistent, positive experiences for residency training.