RESUMO
OBJECTIVE: The American College of Surgeons and the Association of Program Directors in Surgery developed a curriculum in 2001 that involved instructional modules for 11 basic surgical skills and a standardized Verification of Proficiency (VOP) evaluation instrument. Our institution continues to employ a modified version of this curriculum and the purpose of this study was to provide a 10-year update on our VOP evaluation instrument used to assess postgraduate year 1 (PGY-1) residents on surgical skills. DESIGN: All PGY-1 surgical residents over the past 10 years at our institution have completed the American College of Surgeons/the Association of Program Directors in Surgery-adapted basic surgical skills curriculum and VOP assessment. Retrospective analysis of VOP data for all residents was subjected to statistical analysis for internal validity and level of correlation. SETTING: Department of Surgery at Southern Illinois University School of Medicine located in Springfield, Illinois. PARTICIPANTS: All PGY-1 surgical residents (per year: 4 general surgery, 3 orthopedic surgery, 2 plastic surgery, 2 urology, 2 ENT, 1 vascular surgery, and 1 neurosurgery) over the past 10 years. RESULTS: One hundred and thirty five residents underwent VOP evaluation over 10 years; 92 (68%) failed at least 1 module and 40 (30%) failed at least 2 modules. Residents who failed to demonstrate proficiency were mandated to complete remediation and retested until their scores were considered proficient. Performance on checklist items showed moderate internal consistency (⺠≥ 0.50) on 9 of 11 modules. Poor internal consistency (⺠< 0.30) was noted for overall proficiency across all modules. Combined performance on checklist items and economy of time and motion demonstrated significant positive correlation (p < 0.05) with overall proficiency in every module. CONCLUSIONS: The VOP instrument offers an internally valid means of assessing distinct basic skills of PGY-1 residents at basic surgical skills. The instrument provides critical formative and summative feedback on surgical skill performance to trainees.
