Grant: CIHR Fellowship

Introduction: Senior surgical trainees are exposed to minimally invasive general surgery (MIGS) procedures at an increasing rate. Since these procedures require different skill sets, there has been a major change in surgical education led by Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada (RC), focusing on core skills that trainees must acquire, with assessment playing a vital role in ensuring skill gain. However, this is a recent transition, and there is uncertainty regarding how assessment is currently being conducted and used, and whether there are discrepancies in how trainees and faculty perceive the purpose and intended use of assessments in MIGS versus the RC mandates. Objective: Explore current perspectives, practices, and expectations for assessment in MIGS, based on RC mandates, through the lenses of both surgeons and trainees. Research questions: (1) What do surgeons and trainees know about the purpose of emerging assessments in MIGS? (2) What are their expectations and perceptions of the purpose compared to current mandates? (3) How are assessments currently completed and used? (4) Are there gender differences within surgeons and trainees regarding the above research questions? Methods: This is a three-stage mixed methods study. First, semi-structured interviews will be conducted with local senior surgical trainees and faculty who perform MIGS. Second, results from the first stage will be used to develop a web-based survey that will be disseminated nationally. Third, based on the survey results, second set of interviews will be conducted, to explain the findings of the survey. Significance: Results of this project will inform RC and residency programs on how to optimize the implementation of MIGS assessments.