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A Checkbox for Learning: Including surgical goals in the preoperative time out to promote specific and timely feedback
Précis: In an effort to increase the consistency and quality of surgical feedback, a pilot was implemented utilizing a reminder text to both attendings and residents to incorporate a discussion regarding surgical goals as part of the preoperative time out.
Purpose: To assess the feasibility and impact of incorporating a surgical teaching prompt into the preoperative time out utilizing a reminder text message.
Background: Educators and learners acknowledge the importance of surgical feedback in training competent surgeons. Unfortunately, given competing agendas and obstacles, inclusion of feedback is often deprioritized.
Methods: Our strategy consisted of adding a surgical teaching prompt to the preoperative time out. A reminder text message to discuss surgical goals was sent to the operating attendings and residents on the morning of surgery. A survey to assess compliance was sent to the surgical team at end of day. This pilot was run over 12 weeks with a group of 14 attendings and 30 residents.
Results: There were 35 resident and 77 attending responses. With the prompt, residents and attendings reported setting learning goals preoperatively in 78% and 76% of cases, respectively. When goals were set, residents reported they received feedback specific to these goals in 96% of cases, and attendings reported providing goal-specific feedback in 97% of cases. 71% of residents and 77% of attendings reported that the prompt definitely or probably increased the consistency of surgical feedback. 70% of residents and 60% of attendings reported that the prompt definitely or probably increased the quality of surgical feedback.
Discussion: Use of a prompt provided a helpful reminder to initiate a discussion of surgical goals, and subsequently inspired focused feedback. Residents and attendings agreed that this tool increased both the frequency and quality of surgical feedback.
Topics:
SES, 2023,
