Education of Residents in the Operating Room

It is of paramount importance that the technical skills of surgical residents is evaluated. There are obstacles in the operating room setting, however, that interfere with teaching, such as limited time because of efficiency and patient safety. Debriefing after the case has been found to increase the educational value of a case. For this study, residents from the obstetrics and gynecology training program were observed performing four types of sentinel cases. The number of questions the resident asked and the number of teaching points the attending surgeon asked intraoperatively were observed and recorded. During a debriefing session following each case, the video footage collected was available for review and playback. Of the 40 cases that were observed throughout the study, sufficient data to analyze the educational value of the case was only collected from 15 of the cases. The overall average learning experience reported from the attending and resident surgeons for all collected cases was 4.5 on a 1 to 5 Likert scale. In conclusion, higher-level residents were found to ask less questions and were given fewer teaching points. SimCapture technology was found to be a useful tool for resident evaluation, and should be implemented into other specialties beyond obstetrics and gynecology.