Personalized video feedback improves suturing skills of incoming general surgery trainees

Abstract

Background: The American Board of Surgery encourages graduating medical students to prepare for surgical residency before day 1. We sought to determine the impact of personalized video feedback on an advance preparation task. Methods: We conducted a nonrandomized study comparing video feedback versus no feedback. We sent incoming surgical interns a preparatory package 2 months before starting residency. Trainees video-recorded themselves performing a subcuticular wound closure, 3 times at 3-week intervals, and submitted these for appraisal. A staff surgeon provided personalized feedback on each video as a narrated voiceover. The voiced-over videos were then returned to trainees. We compared performance (time and completion rate) on suturing in a multistation assessment against residents from the previous year (no-feedback group). Results: The feedback group had a higher completion rate for the suturing assessment than the no-feedback group (23/28 [82%] vs. 8/27 [30%], P