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Jazz up the Clinical Learning Environment in the Operating Room: The Impact of Operative Skills Checklist

Background: As gynecological surgeries become more minimally invasive, medical students are left watching surgeries on operating room screen and may not be actively engaged in the surgery. To re-engage the medical student in the operating room, a gynecological operative skills checklist was created. The checklist outlined expectations for students on how to engage in the pre-operative, intra-operative, and post-operative setting based on our educational goals. We sought to understand the impact of utilizing the checklist on surgical engagement, clarity of expectations, and informal feedback for medical students and physician-educators.

Methods: Anonymous data were collected via an online survey from medical students who completed their OB/GYN clerkship in the year prior to implementation of the operative skills checklist and compared to surveys from students collected following the implementation. Similarly, physician-educators involved in surgical teaching were surveyed regarding their impression of medical student experience pre-implementation and six months post-implementation of the checklist.

Results: Ongoing data collection shows improvement of medical student rating of “above-average” and/or “excellent” in post-implementation surveys in the following categories: surgical engagement (83.3% vs 100%), clarity of expectations (62.5% vs 100%), and informal feedback (62.5% vs 80%). Physician-educator scores in these measures have shown similar improvement.

Discussions: Operative skills checklist digest educational goals into smaller action items. Implementation of such checklists in gynecology can improve medical student engagement, clarify student expectations, and improve informal feedback, thereby jazzing up the learning environment.

Topics: CREOG & APGO Annual Meeting, 2019, Student, Resident, Faculty, Clerkship Director, Residency Director, Patient Care, UME, Assessment,