Développement d'un outil d'évaluation des techniques chirurgicales en plastie
Introduction During surgical residencies, technical skills continue to be assessed using subjective evaluation methods. We aim to develop an objective, valid and reliable evaluation tool to assess plastic surgery residents’ microsurgical skills in performing a digital nerve repair. Materials and methods Plastic surgery residents of different levels of training and staff surgeons performed a digital nerve repair on a human cadaveric hand model. These performances were recorded and assessed by blinded raters using a newly developed evaluation tool. This consisted of 12 steps, each rated using a 5-point Likert scale. The tool’s reliability was determined by comparing each candidate’s evaluation by the two separate raters and its validity determined by comparing performances of candidates of different levels of expertise. Results Ten candidates took part in this study. The inter-rater reliability was considered acceptable, with an intraclass correlation coefficient of 0.690. The test’s internal consistency was excellent with a Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of 0.960. The test’s validity was demonstrated by the fact that higher levels of expertise were associated with higher performance scores (p=0.017). Conclusion We developed a new evaluation tool for a microsurgical procedure, that performed well in terms of reliability and validity. This makes it a pedagogically useful tool that can be incorporated in plastic surgery residents’ training to improve surgical skills teaching and assessment.
Evaluation tool Pedagogy Surgical teaching Surgical skills