objective structured clinical examination (osce)-based assessment of the advanced trauma life support (atls) course in iran

objective: to evaluate the effect of advance trauma life support (atls®) training on general surgery residents clinical reasoning skills using the national boards-style objective structured clinical examination (osce). methods: this cross-sectional single-center study was conducted in shiraz university of medical sciences including 51 surgery residents that participated in a mandatory national board style osce between may 2014 and may 2015. osce scores of two groups of general surgery residents including 23 atls® trained and 28 non-atls® trained were compared using mann-whitney u test. the exam was graded out of 20 points and the passing score was ≥14 including 40% trauma cases. results: there were 8(15.7%) women and 43(84.3%) men among the participants with mean age of 31.12 ± 2.69 and 33.67 ± 4.39 years in women and men respectively. overall 7 (87.5%) women and 34 (79.07%) men passed the osce. the trauma section osce score was significantly higher in the atls® trained participants when compared to non-atls®(7.79 ± 0.81vs.6.90 ± 1.00; p=0.001). in addition, the total score was also significantly higher in atls® trained residents (16.07 ± 1.41 vs. 14.60 ± 1.40; p=0.001). there was no association between gender and atls® score (p=0.245) or passing the osce (p=0.503). conclusion: atls® training is associated with improved overall osce scores of general surgery residents completing the board examinations suggesting a positive transfer of atls learned skills to management of simulated surgical patients including trauma cases.