Interviews evaluating surgical skills

[wildcat05]

Hey everyone,

I'm just curious if anyone has been on any interviews yet where their surgical skills have been evaluated. I'm going to USC in a month and they have a 2 hour tour of the surgical skills lab on the agenda and I'm wondering if they are going to have us suture etc. Anyone know?

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[JackADeli]

Hey everyone,

I'm just curious if anyone has been on any interviews yet where their surgical skills have been evaluated. I'm going to USC in a month and they have a 2 hour tour of the surgical skills lab on the agenda and I'm wondering if they are going to have us suture etc. Anyone know?

I've not been to anything like a technical skill tester.... made for an interesting episode of "ER". The truth be known, ABS is still trying to develop some sort of basic "technical" assessment tool they can incorporate into board certification... after you complete GSurgery training. They currently have none and I don't suspect anything even rudimentary to be employed for an untrained interviewee. Hell, the FLS skills tester is rudimentary and not for the untrained.

 

[NJA61479]

I am a USC resident currently on research and in spite of resident and applicant dismay, we are still doing the two day interview thing. The first day, however is more of us taking time to show you the program on its most basic level. There will be no wining and dining but more of just taking time to show you our M&M sessions, our Core Curriculum sessions, our ABSITE review classes, and then allowing you time to have lunch with the current Chief residents, and finally showing you our surgical skills lab. At the skills lab we have some laparoscopic simulators, some animal tissue skill sets, trauma simulators, colonoscopy simulators, etc. It is just some time to sit around with the other applicants, and residents while checking out the training toys. Don't sweat it, no one will be looking for your present skills. We plan on training and teaching your everything you need to know. All you need to bring is a strong curiosity, a solid work ethic, and willingness to learn.
Good luck and let me know if you have any questions about the program. I won't sugarcoat.

 

[Winged Scapula]

Never heard of it for GS; plastics yes.

 

[blz]

I am applying to a surgical subspecialty and so far there are programs requiring you to: tie a knot under a surgical microscope, carve an apple, and fold a paper airplane. All programs have stated these tasks are for "research purposes" and not counted towards ranking.

I am surprised GS hasn't started doing more of this.

 

[JackADeli]

....All programs have stated these tasks are for "research purposes" and not counted towards ranking...

There are only so many "research" projects that can be done..... GSurgery will spend 5+ years actually training you to operate, etc....

...I am surprised GS hasn't started doing more of this.

What would be the point. Med students spend ~3 months on clinical surgical rotation, kind of silly to expect them to acquire any significant technical ability during that time.... ?maybe staple skills???

To try and score someone on if they know how to tie a knot at an interview.... from a GSurgery standpoint would be a waste of valuable interview time. Even at the point of graduation from GSurgery residency, every attending had a different opinion of how and what was good knot tying. The pede surgeons all demanded meticulous two hand, surge-onc wanted a left hand tie, vascular wanted a one hand square, cardiac just wanted a bunch of throws.... often sliders that had no air.....

 

[SouthernSurgeon]

To try and score someone on if they know how to tie a knot at an interview.... from a GSurgery standpoint would be a waste of valuable interview time. Even at the point of graduation from GSurgery residency, every attending had a different opinion of how and what was good knot tying. The pede surgeons all demanded meticulous two hand, surge-onc wanted a left hand tie, vascular wanted a one hand square, cardiac just wanted a bunch of throws.... often sliders that had no air.....

I talked with a PD about this once. He said that

(1) he thinks that, aside from that 1 occasional person with "amazing" hands and that 1 occasional person with "stone" hands, everyone in training learns the required skills after enough practice.

(2) if he started to test students' knot tying skills, all that would mean is that all the interviewees started meticulously practicing knot-tying in preparation for their interview with him - and that the test wouldn't be predictive of their overall skill years down the line.

 

[blz]

These programs aren't specifically testing knot tying ability but trying to assess "innate" ability by having us do related tasks that require manual skills (folding airplanes, skinning apples).

The program that required tying a knot under a surgical microscope chose this task because most students do not have experience under a surgical microscope and thus this task would be indicative of innate ability.

I'm not saying I necessarily agree with these tasks. For example, when we had to fold airplanes there were a few applicants who were very proficient in origami who breezed through the activity.

 

[Buzz Me]

IIRC, Virginia Mason (in Seattle) has you scrub in with an attending as part of the interview. But that's more to see how you act in a team, rather than actually seeing how you handle a case. (You're not told beforehand which case you'll be scrubbing into.)

 

[JackADeli]

These programs ...trying to assess "innate" ability by having us do related tasks that require manual skills (folding airplanes, skinning apples).

...I'm not saying I necessarily agree with these tasks. For example, when we had to fold airplanes there were a few applicants who were very proficient in origami who breezed through the activity.

Hence the problem with this entire line of research...

You are talking about folks by and large older then 18yo. They are probably somewhere between 20 & 26. Plenty have had hobbies either playing musical instruments, painting, sculpting, oragami, making model planes/cars/boats/warships, etc.... Not sure how one tests "innate" ability. Not sure how they validate these results... a process commonly discussed and recognized as difficult in the world of surgical simulation studies. You have a hundred interviewees.... you only match 2-7 (depending on program size), so how do you even assess or use this so called data????

There is the whole IRB and informed consent issue... You got a group that comes for an interview.... are they in a position to consent or... refuse consent?

It sounds like a whole bunch of dung.

JAD

 

[maxheadroom]

Many years ago, when I interviewed for Plastics, there were a couple of places that had us do different tasks. Loma Linda gave us each a bar of soap and had us carve an ear. UTSW had an attending that wanted you to draw him in AP and lateral while you interviewed with him. I've heard that there is a place that had people do a simulated vessel under the scope, but I forgot which institution that was. I don't think anyone at the programs used the results for anything other than a lark. Mostly they want to test your ability to tackle a challenge that you didn't expect.

 

[JackADeli]

...there were a couple of places that had us do different tasks.
Loma Linda ...a bar of soap ...carve an ear.
UTSW ...wanted you to draw him in AP and lateral while you interviewed...
...heard that there is a place that had people do a simulated vessel under the scope ...Mostly they want to test your ability to tackle a challenge that you didn't expect.

That is my understanding as well. Programs are always looking for ways to liven up the boring interview process. I have heard of attempts to see how you function under pressure, etc.... Do you give up? etc...
But, to suggest some sort of real research study with real data about "innate ability" is occurring and is somehow validated by these tasks.... I think is laughable. Aside from the issue of IRB & consentability, you still have the issues of control, follow-up, measures, etc.... I have worked in studies trying to demonstrate benefits of simulation.... believe me, validation and metrics are not easy and need very controlled study design. You can't do that with a transient group of 50-100 applicants and then follow the fortunate 2-7 matches over five years....

 

[Ttan]

I read about a department head offering a neurosurgery residency position to any interviewee who could beat him at a game of chess once.

 

[rtc]

IIRC, Virginia Mason (in Seattle) has you scrub in with an attending as part of the interview. But that's more to see how you act in a team, rather than actually seeing how you handle a case. (You're not told beforehand which case you'll be scrubbing into.)

I almost scrubbed in on a case in an interview as well elsewhere. I was wondering if there could be any possible issues regarding insurance and coverage in the rare occasion that something goes awry and your name's on the records?

 

[beefballs]

Many years ago, when I interviewed for Plastics, there were a couple of places that had us do different tasks. Loma Linda gave us each a bar of soap and had us carve an ear. UTSW had an attending that wanted you to draw him in AP and lateral while you interviewed with him. I've heard that there is a place that had people do a simulated vessel under the scope, but I forgot which institution that was. I don't think anyone at the programs used the results for anything other than a lark. Mostly they want to test your ability to tackle a challenge that you didn't expect.

this is not an evaluation of anything but your willingness to be subservient and to perform a useless task without thinking about why you are doing it. You want to see how I perform under pressure ask me a question I didn't prepare for that requires thought, evaluate my thought process logic and reasoning, but to have you carve an ear, ridiculous. If you are an average applicant with good scores research letters experience, is your lack of artistic skills going to hurt you? There is no purpose in that.

 

[dpmd]

When I applied for ortho I went to an interview where I had to drill a hole through two plastic pipes (one inside the other) and try to go through the four premarked dots (they also wanted me to answer how to plate a fracture) I never had anything remotely like that on my surg interviews. I think it has more to do with seeing how you react to being given a task that you haven't prepared for, than with wanting to know how your technical skills are. Do you freak out and not even come up with a strategy, do you keep dwelling on it the rest of the interview, do you take a stab at it and discuss your rationale in an intelligent manner. I can't say for sure (I didn't get in there otherwise I would have asked them).

 

[igap]

A while ago I interviewed for plastics. During interviews I had to draw an ear, draw a face, and tie some knots. These random tasks are not tests with any validity, and anyone who thinks that they reveal anything of importance about an applicant is off the mark. There is no validity at all in saying that these activities test "innate" ability.

In fact, I found that the places that put forth these tasks did not require them of every applicant. These tasks were seemingly assigned at random at one interview. I had to draw an ear, and another guy had to draw the nose and lips. The rest of the applicants that day drew nothing.

I guess these things happen when you have untrained interviewers giving interviews. About the only thing that you can really tell an applicant from a one, or sometimes two, day interview is how the applicant looks wearing a suit.

 

[DOme2009]

a buddy of mine who interviewed for ortho a while back mentioned the drill thru pipe/dots test (but they actually measure how far off you were in mm), and i heard of a bunch of other ones as well: looking into a box and drawing what you see without looking away from the box, looking into a box for 15-20 seconds and then reproducing what you saw, tying a knot using laparoscopic equipment, and the last one was the best one (but likely b.s.): you are seated in front of a block of clay and 3 interviewers who immediately start asking you questions. a card next to the clay asks you to sculpt an anatomically correct model of a femur during the interview - and of course, they say that none of this stuff affects how they rank you 🙄